Chapter 14

In Mandla at a wedding the barber comes and cuts the bride's nails, and the cuttings are rolled up in dough and placed in a little earthen pot beside the marriage-post. The bridegroom's nails and hair are similarly cut in his own house and placed in another vessel. A month or two after the wedding the two little pots are taken out and thrown into the Nerbudda. A wedding costs the bridegroom's party about Rs. 40 or Rs. 50 and the bride's about Rs. 25. They have no going-away ceremony, but the occasion of a girl's coming to maturity is known as Bolawan. She is kept apart for six days and given new clothes, and the caste-people are invited to a meal. When a woman's husband dies the barber breaks her bangles, and her anklets are taken off and given to him as his perquisite. Her brother-in-law or other relative gives her a new white cloth, and she wears this at first, and afterwards white or coloured clothes at her pleasure. Her hair is not cut, and she may wear _patelas_ or flat metal bangles on the forearm and armlets above the elbow, but not other ornaments. A widow is under no obligation to marry her first husband's younger brother; when she marries a stranger he usually pays a sum of about Rs. 30 to her parents. When the price has been paid the couple exchange a ring and a bangle respectively in token of the agreement. When the woman is proceeding to her second husband's house, her old clothes, necklace and bangles are thrown into a river or stream and she is given new ones to wear. This is done to lay the first husband's spirit, which may be supposed to hang about the clothes she wore as his wife, and when they are thrown away or buried the exorcist mutters spells over them in order to lay the spirit. No music is allowed at the marriage of a widow except the crooked trumpet called _singara_. A bachelor who marries a widow must first go through a mock ceremony with a cotton-plant, a sword or a ring. Divorce must be effected before the caste _panchayat_ or committee, and if a divorced woman marries again, her first husband performs funeral and mourning ceremonies as if she were dead. In Gujarat the practice is much more lax and "divorce can be obtained almost to an indefinite extent. Before they finally settle down to wedded life most couples have more than once changed their partners." [120] But here also, before the change takes place, there must be a formal divorce recognised by the caste.

6. Funeral rites

The caste either burn or bury the dead and observe mourning for three days, [121] having their houses whitewashed and their faces shaved. On the tenth day they give a feast to the caste-fellows. On the Akshaya Tritia [122] and the 30th day of Kunwar (September) they offer rice and cakes to the crows in the names of their ancestors. In Berar Mr. Kitts writes: [123] "If a Mahar's child has died, he will on the third day place bread on the grave; if an infant, milk; if an adult, on the tenth day, with five pice in one hand and five betel-leaves in the other, he goes into the river, dips himself five times and throws these things away; he then places five lighted lamps on the tomb, and after these simple ceremonies gets himself shaved as though he were an orthodox Hindu."

7. Childbirth

In Mandla the mother is secluded at childbirth in a separate house if one is available, and if not they fence in a part of the veranda for her use with bamboo screens. After the birth the mother must remain impure until the barber comes and colours her toe-nails and draws a line round her feet with red _mahur_ powder. This is indispensable, and if the barber is not immediately available she must wait until his services can be obtained. When the navel-string drops it is buried in the place on which the mother sat while giving birth, and when this has been done the purification may be effected. The Dhobi is then called to wash the clothes of the household, and their earthen pots are thrown away. The head of the newborn child is shaved clean, as the birth-hair is considered to be impure, and the hair is wrapped up in dough and thrown into a river.

8. Names

A child is named on the seventh or twelfth day after its birth, the name being chosen by the Mohturia or caste headman. The ordinary Hindu names of deities for men and sacred rivers or pious and faithful wives for women are employed; instances of the latter being Ganga, Godavari, Jamuna, Sita, Laxmi and Radha. Opprobrious names are sometimes given to avert ill-luck, as Damdya (purchased for eight cowries), Kauria (a cowrie), Bhikaria (a beggar), Ghusia (from _ghus_, a mallet for stamping earth), Harchatt (refuse), Akali (born in famine-time), Langra (lame), Lula (having an arm useless); or the name of another low caste is given, as Bhangi (sweeper), Domari (Dom sweeper), Chamra (tanner), Basori (basket-maker). Not infrequently children are named after the month or day when they were born, as Pusau, born in Pus (December), Chaitu, born in Chait (March), Manglu (born on Tuesday), Buddhi (born on Wednesday), Sukka (born on Friday), Sanichra (born on Saturday). One boy was called Mulua or 'Sold' (_mol-dena_). His mother had no other children, so sold him for one pice (farthing) to a Gond woman. After five or six months, as he did not get fat, his name was changed to Jhuma or 'lean,' probably as an additional means of averting ill-luck. Another boy was named Ghurka, from the noise he made when being suckled. A child born in the absence of its father is called Sonwa, or one born in an empty house.

9. Religion

The great body of the caste worship the ordinary deities Devi, Hanuman, Dulha Deo, and others, though of course they are not allowed to enter Hindu temples. They principally observe the Holi and Dasahra festivals and the days of the new and full moon. On the festival of Nag-Panchmi they make an image of a snake with flour and sugar and eat it. At the sacred Ambala tank at Ramtek the Mahars have a special bathing-ghat set apart for them, and they may enter the citadel and go as far as the lowest step leading up to the temples; here they worship the god and think that he accepts their offerings. They are thus permitted to traverse the outer enclosures of the citadel, which are also sacred. In Wardha the Mahars may not touch the shrines of Mahadeo, but must stand before them with their hands joined. They may sometimes deposit offerings with their own hands on those of Bhimsen, originally a Gond god, and Mata Devi, the goddess of smallpox.

10. Adoption of foreign religions

In Berar and Bombay the Mahars have some curious forms of belief. "Of the confusion which obtains in the Mahar theogony the names of six of their gods will afford a striking example. While some Mahars worship Vithoba, the god of Pandharpur, others revere Varuna's twin sons, Meghoni and Deghoni, and his four messengers, Gabriel, Azrael, Michael and Anadin, all of whom they say hail from Pandharpur." [124] The names of archangels thus mixed up with Hindu deities may most probably have been obtained from the Muhammadans, as they include Azrael; but in Gujarat their religion appears to have been borrowed from Christianity. "The Karia Dhedas have some rather remarkable beliefs. In the Satya Yug the Dhedas say they were called Satyas; in the Dvapar Yug they were called Meghas; in the Treta Yug, Elias; and in the Kali Yug, Dhedas. The name Elias came, they say, from a prophet Elia, and of him their religious men have vague stories; some of them especially about a famine that lasted for three years and a half, easily fitting into the accounts of Elijah in the Jewish Scriptures. They have also prophecies of a high future in store for their tribe. The king or leader of the new era, Kuyam Rai by name, will marry a Dheda woman and will raise the caste to the position of Brahmans. They hold religious meetings or _ochhavas_, and at these with great excitement sing songs full of hope of the good things in store for them. When a man wishes to hold an _ochhava_ he invites the whole caste, and beginning about eight in the evening they often spend the night in singing. Except perhaps for a few sweetmeats there is no eating or drinking, and the excitement is altogether religious and musical. The singers are chiefly religious Dhedas or Bhagats, and the people join in a refrain '_Avore Kuyam Rai Raja_', 'Oh! come Kuyam Rai, our king.'" [125] It seems that the attraction which outside faiths exercise on the Mahars is the hope held out of ameliorating the social degradation under which they labour, itself an outcome of the Hindu theory of caste. Hence they turn to Islam, or to what is possibly a degraded version of the Christian story, because these religions do not recognise caste, and hold out a promise to the Mahar of equality with his co-religionists, and in the case of Christianity of a recompense in the world to come for the sufferings which he has to endure in this one. Similarly, the Mahars are the warmest adherents of the Muhammadan saint Sheikh Farid, and flock to the fairs held in his honour at Girar in Wardha and Partapgarh in Bhandara, where he is supposed to have slain a couple of giants. [126] In Berar [127] also they revere Muhammadan tombs. The remains of the Muhammadan fort and tank on Pimpardol hill in Jalgaon taluk are now one of the sacred places of the Mahars, though to the Muhammadans they have no religious associations. Even at present Mahars are inclined to adopt Islam, and a case was recently reported when a body of twenty of them set out to do so, but turned back on being told that they would not be admitted to the mosque. [128] A large proportion of the Mahars are also adherents of the Kabirpanthi sect, one of the main tenets of whose founder was the abolition of caste. And it is from the same point of view that Christianity appeals to them, enabling European missionaries to draw a large number of converts from this caste. But even the Hindu attitude towards the Mahars is not one of unmixed intolerance. Once in three or four years in the southern Districts, the Panwars, Mahars, Pankas and other castes celebrate the worship of Narayan Deo or Vishnu, the officiating priest being a Mahar. Members of all castes come to the Panwar's house at night for the ceremony, and a vessel of water is placed at the door in which they wash their feet and hands as they enter; and when inside they are all considered to be equal, and they sit in a line and eat the same food, and bind wreaths of flowers round their heads. After the cock crows the equality of status is ended, and no one who goes out of the house can enter again. At present also many educated Brahmans recognise fully the social evils resulting from the degraded position of the Mahars, and are doing their best to remove the caste prejudices against them.

11. Superstitions

They have various spells to cure a man possessed of an evil spirit, or stung by a snake or scorpion, or likely to be in danger from tigers or wild bears; and in the Morsi taluk of Berar it is stated that they so greatly fear the effect of an enemy writing their name on a piece of paper and tying it to a sweeper's broom that the threat to do this can be used with great effect by their creditors. [129] To drive out the evil eye they make a small human image of powdered turmeric and throw it into boiled water, mentioning as they do so the names of any persons whom they suspect of having cast the evil eye upon them. Then the pot of water is taken out at midnight of a Wednesday or a Sunday and placed upside down on some cross-roads with a shoe over it, and the sufferer should be cured. Their belief about the sun and moon is that an old woman had two sons who were invited by the gods to dinner. Before they left she said to them that as they were going out there would be no one to cook, so they must remember to bring back something for her. The elder brother forgot what his mother had said and took nothing away with him; but the younger remembered her and brought back something from the feast. So when they came back the old woman cursed the elder brother and said that as he had forgotten her he should be the sun and scorch and dry up all vegetation with his beams; but the younger brother should be the moon and make the world cool and pleasant at night. The story is so puerile that it is only worth reproduction as a specimen of the level of a Mahar's intelligence. The belief in evil spirits appears to be on the decline, as a result of education and accumulated experience. Mr. C. Brown states that in Malkapur of Berar the Mahars say that there are no wandering spirits in the hills by night of such a nature that people need fear them. There are only tiny _pari_ or fairies, small creatures in human form, but with the power of changing their appearance, who do no harm to any one.

12. Social rules

When an outsider is to be received into the community all the hair on his face is shaved, being wetted with the urine of a boy belonging to the group to which he seeks admission. Mahars will eat all kinds of food including the flesh of crocodiles and rats, but some of them abstain from beef. There is nothing peculiar in their dress except that the men wear a black woollen thread round their necks. [130] The women may be recognised by their bold carriage, the absence of nose-rings and the large irregular dabs of vermilion on the forehead. Mahar women do not, as a rule, wear the _choli_ or breast-cloth. An unmarried girl does not put on vermilion nor draw her cloth over her head. Women must be tattooed with dots on the face, representations of scorpions, flowers and snakes on the arms and legs, and some dots to represent flies on the hands. It is the custom for a girl's father or mother or father-in-law to have her tattooed in one place on the hand or arm immediately on her marriage. Then when girls are sitting together they will show this mark and say, 'My mother or father-in-law had this done,' as the case may be. Afterwards if a woman so desires she gets herself tattooed on her other limbs. If an unmarried girl or widow becomes with child by a man of the Mahar caste or any higher one she is subjected after delivery to a semblance of the purification by fire known as Agnikasht. She is taken to the bank of a river and there five stalks of juari are placed round her and burnt. Having fasted all day, at night she gives a feast to the caste-men and eats with them. If she offends with a man of lower caste she is finally expelled. Temporary exclusion from caste is imposed for taking food or drink from the hands of a Mang or Chamar or for being imprisoned in jail, or on a Mahar man if he lives with a woman of any higher caste; the penalty being the shaving of a man's face or cutting off a lock of a woman's hair, together with a feast to the caste. In the last case it is said that the man is not readmitted until he has put the woman away. If a man touches a dead dog, cat, pony or donkey, he has to be shaved and give a feast to the caste. And if a dog or cat dies in his house, or a litter of puppies or kittens is born, the house is considered to be defiled; all the earthen pots must be thrown away, the whole house washed and cleaned and a caste feast given. The most solemn oath of a Mahar is by a cat or dog and in Yeotmal by a black dog. [131] In Berar, the same paper states, the pig is the only animal regarded as unclean, and they must on no account touch it. This is probably owing to Muhammadan influence. The worst social sin which a Mahar can commit is to get vermin in a wound, which is known as Deogan or being smitten by God. While the affliction continues he is quite ostracised, no one going to his house or giving him food or water; and when it is cured the Mahars of ten or twelve surrounding villages assemble and he must give a feast to the whole community. The reason for this calamity being looked upon with such peculiar abhorrence is obscure, but the feeling about it is general among Hindus.

13. Social subjection

The social position of the Mahars is one of distressing degradation. Their touch is considered to defile and they live in a quarter by themselves outside the village. They usually have a separate well assigned to them from which to draw water, and if the village has only one well the Mahars and Hindus take water from different sides of it. Mahar boys were not until recently allowed to attend school with Hindu boys, and when they could not be refused admission to Government schools, they were allotted a small corner of the veranda and separately taught. When Dher boys were first received into the Chanda High School a mutiny took place and the school was boycotted for some time. The people say, '_Mahar sarva jaticha bahar_' or 'The Mahar is outside all castes.' Having a bad name, they are also given unwarrantably a bad character; and '_Mahar jaticha_' is a phrase used for a man with no moral or kindly feelings. But in theory at least, as conforming to Hinduism, they were supposed to be better than Muhammadans and other unbelievers, as shown by the following story from the Rasmala: [132] A Muhammadan sovereign asked his Hindu minister which was the lowest caste. The minister begged for leisure to consider his reply and, having obtained it, went to where the Dhedas lived and said to them: "You have given offence to the Padishah. It is his intention to deprive you of caste and make you Muhammadans." The Dhedas, in the greatest terror, pushed off in a body to the sovereign's palace, and standing at a respectful distance shouted at the top of their lungs: "If we've offended your majesty, punish us in some other way than that. Beat us, fine us, hang us if you like, but don't make us Muhammadans." The Padishah smiled, and turning to his minister who sat by him affecting to hear nothing, said, 'So the lowest caste is that to which I belong.' But of course this cannot be said to represent the general view of the position of Muhammadans in Hindu eyes; they, like the English, are regarded as distinguished foreigners, who, if they consented to be proselytised, would probably in time become Brahmans or at least Rajputs. A repartee of a Mahar to a Brahman abusing him is: The Brahman, '_Jare Maharya_' or 'Avaunt, ye Mahar'; the Mahar, '_Kona diushi nein tumchi goburya_' or 'Some day I shall carry cowdung cakes for you (at his funeral)'; as in the Maratha Districts the Mahar is commonly engaged for carrying fuel to the funeral pyre. Under native rule the Mahar was subjected to painful degradations. He might not spit on the ground lest a Hindu should be polluted by touching it with his foot, but had to hang an earthen pot round his neck to hold his spittle. [133] He was made to drag a thorny branch with him to brush out his footsteps, and when a Brahman came by had to lie at a distance on his face lest his shadow might fall on the Brahman. In Gujarat [134] they were not allowed to tuck up the loin-cloth but had to trail it along the ground. Even quite recently in Bombay a Mahar was not allowed to talk loudly in the street while a well-to-do Brahman or his wife was dining in one of the houses. In the reign of Sidhraj, the great Solanki Raja of Gujarat, the Dheras were for a time at any rate freed from such disabilities by the sacrifice of one of their number. [135] The great tank at Anhilvada Patan in Gujarat had been built by the Ods (navvies), but Sidhraj desired Jusma Odni, one of their wives, and sought to possess her. But the Ods fled with her and when he pursued her she plunged a dagger into her stomach, cursing Sidhraj and saying that his tank should never hold water. The Raja, returning to Anhilvada, found the tank dry, and asked his minister what should be done that water might remain in the tank. The Pardhan, after consulting the astrologers, said that if a man's life were sacrificed the curse might be removed. At that time the Dhers or outcastes were compelled to live at a distance from the towns; they wore untwisted cotton round their heads and a stag's horn as a mark hanging from their waists so that people might be able to avoid touching them. The Raja commanded that a Dher named Mayo should be beheaded in the tank that water might remain. Mayo died, singing the praises of Vishnu, and the water after that began to remain in the tank. At the time of his death Mayo had begged as a reward for his sacrifice that the Dhers should not in future be compelled to live at a distance from the towns nor wear a distinctive dress. The Raja assented and these privileges were afterwards permitted to the Dhers for the sake of Mayo.

14. Their position improving

From the painful state of degradation described above the Mahars are gradually being rescued by the levelling and liberalising tendency of British rule, which must be to these depressed classes an untold blessing. With the right of acquiring property they have begun to assert themselves, and the extension of railways more especially has a great effect in abolishing caste distinctions. The Brahman who cannot afford a second-class fare must either not travel or take the risk of rubbing shoulders with a Mahar in a third-class carriage, and if he chooses to consider himself defiled will have to go hungry and thirsty until he gets the opportunity of bathing at his journey's end. The observance of the rules of impurity thus becomes so irksome that they are gradually falling into abeyance.

15. Occupation