R. V. Russell

“ The fish in the river are on the look-out; the Brāhman’s daughter is bathing with her hair down.
The arhar-stumps stand in the field; I loved one of another caste, but must give him up.
He ate betel and coloured his teeth; his beloved came from without and knew him.
The ploughmen are gone to the field; my clever writer is gone to the court-house.
The Nerbudda flows like a bent bow; a beautiful youth is standing in court.4
The broken areca-nuts lie in the forest; when a man comes to misfortune no one will help him. ”

“ Some lounge away their time on the tops of the mountains, spreading nets for the capture of hawks; many a day they watch in vain, subsisting on berries and on game accidentally entangled in their nets; at last, when fortune grants them success, they despatch the prize to their friends below, who tame and instruct the bird for the purpose of sale. Others will stay at home and pass their time in sporting, either with a hawk or, if they can afford it, with a gun; one Rājpūt beats the bushes and the other carries the hawk ready to be sprung after any quarry that rises to the view. ”

“ In the knot are wooden combs and other instruments useful and ornamental, with numerous ornaments of brass.8 At the very extremity of the roll of hair gleams a small circular mirror set in brass, from which, and also from his ears, bright brass chains with spiky pendants dangle, and as he moves with the springy elastic step of youth and tosses his head like a high-mettled steed in the buoyancy of his animal spirits, he sets all his glittering ornaments in motion and displays as he laughs a row of teeth, round, white and regular, that give light and animation to his dusky features. ”

“ On this last day a little mound of earth is made, which is considered to represent Mahādeo. Four miniature flags are planted round, and three cakes of rice are laid on it; and all the mourners sit round the mound until a crow comes and eats some of the cake. Then they say that the dead man’s spirit has been freed from troubling about his household and mundane affairs and has departed to the other world. But if no real crow comes to eat the cake, they make a representation of one out of the sacred kusha grass, and touch the cake with it and consider that a crow has eaten it. ”

“ During the days of mourning the chief mourner sits apart and does no work. The others do their work but do not touch any one else, as they are impure. They leave their hair unkempt, do not worship the gods nor sleep on cots, and abjure betel, milk, butter, curds, meat, the wearing of shoes, new clothes and other luxuries. In these days the friends of the family come and comfort the mourners with conversation on the shortness and uncertainty of human life and kindred topics. ”

“ If we see a cat when we are near the place where we intend to commit a dacoity, or we hear the relations of a dead person lamenting, or hear a person sneeze while cooking his meal, or see a dog run away with a portion of any person’s food, or a kite screams while sitting on a tree, or a woman breaks the earthen vessel in which she may have been drawing water, we consider the omens unfavourable. If a person drops his turban or we meet a corpse, or the Jemādār has forgotten to put some bread into his waistbelt, or any dacoit forgets his axe or spear or sees a snake whether dead or alive ”

“ For a marriage feast forty handias are prepared by the groom’s father, and all the people of the village who can afford it supply one also. Each handia gives about three gallons of rice-beer, so that in one day and a half, in a village of thirty houses, about 200 gallons of rice-beer are despatched. The Oraons are famous for their dances. They delight in spending the whole night from sunset till morning in this most exciting amusement, and in the dancing season they go from village to village. They get, as it were, intoxicated with the music, and there is never any slackening of the pace. ”

“ By being passed over the child it takes the child’s evil destiny upon itself, and the burial in a cemetery causes the goat to resemble a human being, while the after-birth communicates to it some part of the life of the child. If a mother is afraid her child will die, she sells it for a few cowries to another woman. Of course the sale is only nominal, but the woman who has purchased the child takes a special interest in it, and at the naming or other ceremony she will give it a jewel or such other present as she can afford. ”

“ He loves his land, and to lose it is to break the mainspring of his life. His land gives him a freedom and independence of character which is not found among the English farm-labourers. He is industrious and plodding, and inured to hardship. In some Districts the excellent tilth of the Kurmi’s fields well portrays the result of his persevering labour, which he does not grudge to the land because it is his own. His wife is in no way behind him; the proverb says, “Good is the caste of the Kurmin; with a hoe in her hand she goes to the fields and works with her husband.” ”

“ Landowners have often a barber as a family servant, the office descending from father to son. Such a man will light his master’s chilam (pipe-bowl) or huqqa (water-pipe) , clean and light lamps, prepare his bed, tell his master stories to send him to sleep, act as escort for the women of the family when they go on a journey and arrange matches for the children. The barber’s wife attends on women in child-birth after the days of pollution are over, and rubs oil on the bodies of her clients, pares their nails and paints their feet with red dye at marriages and on other festival occasions. ”

“ One can well imagine in what state the dancers are at the first crow of the cock, and when ‘L’aurore avec ses doigts de rose entr’ouvre les portes de l’orient,’ she finds the girls straggling home one by one, dishevelled, traînant l’aile, too tired even to enjoy the company of the boys, who remain behind in small groups, still sounding their tom-toms at intervals as if sorry that the performance was so soon over. ”

“ When the woman of the house is satisfied that the fortune-teller has supernatural powers, she allows the witch to cover her face with her robe, and shuts her eyes while the fortune-teller breathes on them, and blows into her ears and sits muttering charms. ”

“ On the ninth, tenth or eleventh day the males of the family have the front of the head from the crown, and the beard and moustaches, shaved in token of mourning. The Mahā-Brāhman who receives the gifts for the dead is shaved with them. This must be done for an elder relation, but a man need not be shaved on the death of his wife, sister or children. The day is the end of mourning and is called Gauri Ganesh, Gauri being Pārvati or the wife of Siva, and Ganesh the god of good fortune. ”

“ If a girl should be seduced by a man of the caste she would be united to him by the ceremony of a widow’s marriage: but her family will require a bride from her husband’s family in exchange for the girl whose value he has destroyed. Even if led astray by an outsider a girl may be readmitted into the caste; and in the extreme case of her being debauched by her brother, she may still be married to one of the community, but no one will take food from her hands during her lifetime, though her children will be recognised as proper Pārdhis. ”

“ A pregnant woman must not look on a dead body or her child may be still-born, and she must not see an eclipse or the child may be born maimed. Some believe that if a child is born during an eclipse it will suffer from lung-disease; so they make a silver model of the moon while the eclipse lasts and hang it round the child’s neck as a charm. Sometimes when delivery is delayed they take a folded flower and place it in a pot of water and believe that as its petals unfold so the womb will be opened and the child born ”

“ Permanent expulsion from caste is inflicted for a change of religion, taking food or having sexual intercourse with a member of an impure caste, and for eating beef. For killing a man, a cow, a buffalo, an ass, a horse, a squirrel, a cat or a monkey a man must purify himself by bathing in the Ganges at Allahābād or Benāres and giving a feast to the caste. It will be seen that all these are domestic animals except the monkey, who is the god Hanumān. The squirrel is counted as a domestic animal because it is always about the house, and the souls of children are believed to go into squirrels. ”

“ Mahādeo took pity on the few men who were left alive, and gave them some grain for sowing. In those days men used to drag the plough through the earth themselves. But when a Kunbi, to whom Mahādeo had given some seed, went to try and sow it, he and his family were so emaciated by hunger that they were unable, in spite of their united efforts, to get the plough through the ground. In this pitiable case the Kunbi besought Mahādeo to give him some further assistance, and Mahādeo then appeared, and, bringing with him the bull Nandi, upon which he rode, told the Kunbi to yoke it to the plough. ”

“ The keeper leads him along, as he would a large dog, with a chain; and for a time as they scamper over the country the leopard goes willingly enough; but if anything arrests his attention, some noise from the forest, some scented trail upon the ground, he moves more slowly, throws his head aloft and peers savagely round. ”

“ The dead are buried, not in the common burial-grounds, but in some waste place. The corpse is laid on its side, facing the east, with head to the north and feet to the south. A piece of silk or other valuable cloth is placed on it, on which salt is sprinkled, and the earth is then filled in and the ground levelled so as to leave no trace of the grave. No memorial is erected over a Mānbhao tomb, and no mourning nor ceremony of purification is observed, nor are oblations offered to the spirits of the dead. ”

“ A man who has once caught a deer must not again have the hair of his head touched by a razor, and thus the Pārdhis may be recognised by their long and unkempt locks. A breach of this rule is punished with a fine of fifteen rupees, but it is not observed everywhere. A woman must never step across the rope or peg of a tent, nor upon the place where the blood of a deer has flowed on to the ground. During her monthly period of impurity a woman must not cross a river nor sit in a boat. A Pārdhi will never kill or sell a dog and they will not hunt wild dogs even if money is offered to them. ”

“ The most extraordinary trait in the characters of these people is not this that they can look back upon all the murders they have perpetrated without any feelings of remorse, but that they can look forward indifferently to their children, whom they love as tenderly as any man in the world, following the same trade of murder or being united in marriage to men who follow the trade. ”

“ One of the leading tenets of the Mānbhaos is a respect for all forms of animal and even vegetable life, much on a par with that of the Jains. They strain water through a cloth before drinking it, and then delicately wipe the cloth to preserve any insects that may be upon it. They should not drink water in, and hence cannot reside in, any village where animal sacrifices are offered to a deity. They will not cut down a tree nor break off a branch, or even a blade of grass, nor pluck a fruit or an ear of corn. Some, it is said, will not even bathe in tanks for fear of destroying insect-life. ”

“ Marātha and Khedāwāl Brāhman women will not have ornaments for the head and arms of any baser metal than gold. If they cannot afford gold bracelets they wear only glass ones. Other castes should, if they can afford it, wear only gold on the head. And at any rate the nose-ring and small earrings in the upper ear should be of gold if worn at all. When a man is at the point of death, a little gold, Ganges water, and a leaf of the tulsi or basil plant are placed in his mouth, so that these sacred articles may accompany him to the other world. ”

“ They put red, yellow and white rice in a basket and leave it in the forest, saying: Ghosts of such as died by falling from a tree, ghosts of such as died of hunger or thirst, ghosts of such as died by the tiger’s tooth or the serpent’s fang, ghosts of the murdered dead, ghosts of such as died by smallpox or cholera, ghosts of dead lepers, oh ill-treat us not, seize not upon our persons, do us no harm! ”

“ A Miān or well-known Rājpūt, to preserve his name and honour unsullied, must scrupulously observe four fundamental maxims: first, he must never drive the plough; second, he must never give his daughter in marriage to an inferior nor marry himself much below his rank; thirdly, he must never accept money in exchange for the betrothal of his daughter; and lastly, his female household must observe strict seclusion. The prejudice against the plough is perhaps the most inveterate of all ”

“ I will make you many sweetmeats and speak words of wisdom. Always treat your husband better than his parents. Increase your private money (khamora) by selling rice and sugar; abuse your sisters-in-law to your husband’s mother and become her favourite. Get influence over your husband and make him come with you to live with us. If you cannot persuade him, abandon your modesty and make quarrels in the household. ”