William Crooke

“ It is noticeable that in this form of the levirate alliance with the elder brother of her late husband is rigidly prohibited: in fact all through the Hindu caste system any intercourse, even to the extent of speaking to, touching, or appearing unveiled in the presence of, her husband’s Jeth, or elder brother, is strictly guarded by a special taboo. There is a Behâr proverb—Latul bhainsur dewar barâbar—“a weak elder brother-in-law is like a younger brother-in-law, with whom you may take liberties.” ”

“ There seems, however, to be an increasing tendency towards the more respectable form of marriage, and some of them not only profess to have a law of exogamy to this extent that they will not give their boys to, or take a bride from, a family with which within memory they have been allied by marriage, but they also pretend to allow the levirate under the usual restrictions, and permit widow marriage. When they do marry in the caste continence is compulsory on the wife, and her husband can put her away for infidelity proved to the satisfaction of the tribal council. ”

“ There is a constant tendency for tribes as they rise in the social scale to adopt the Brâhmanical gotras, because it is a respectable fact to belong to one of them. Thus all the stricter Hindu castes, like Banyas, Khatris, and even Kâyasths, recognise the gotra. The fiction of common descent from the eponymous ancestor naturally disappears, and among such people the gotra has no higher significance than the pedigree worked up to order in the Herald’s College, which ranks the novus homo through the use of a common crest and coat-of-arms with the great houses of Cavendish, Russel, or Howard. ”

“ The elder brother cannot touch the wife of his younger brother, and he can eat with no woman but his own sister. If he touch a Dom he must purify himself before doing any other work. He will not eat food touched by a Dom or Dhobi, and the husband and wife will not mention each other by their names. Of all tribes the Dom, though he is admitted to be akin to the Bhangi, is held in particular abhorrence. Their rules of food vary with the religion they profess. Thus, Shaikh Mehtars will not eat pork, and some of the Hindu Bhangis will not eat beef. ”

“ In addition to the feast the offender has always, in Mirzapur, to pay a cash fine of one-and-a-quarter rupees. Monogamy is the rule, but there is no restriction against a man having as many wives as he can marry and support. Concubinage with a woman of another caste is prohibited, and the caste look on the very idea of polyandry with such horror that it is more than doubtful if it could ever have been a tribal institution. If an unmarried girl is detected in an intrigue with a clansman she is married to him by order of the council, and her father has to give a dinner to the brethren. ”

“ In many cases, as will be seen by the examples which have been collected, the bride-price is fixed by tribal custom, and it marks a progressive stage in the evolution of marriage, where the purchase of the bride is veiled under the fiction of a contribution given by the relatives of the youth to cover the expenses of the marriage feast, which is, except in the dola or inferior form of marriage, provided by the relatives of the bride. ”

“ There is no initiation rite for males; but when a girl reaches puberty, and is prostituted for the first time, the money she earns is spent in drinking and in feeding the other unmarried girls of the tribe, while Satya Nârâyana is worshipped, and verses in honour of him are recited. In a marriage of a virgin girl of the caste, which is very unusual, they follow the orthodox form; when they get hold of some other woman or of a widow there is no ceremony except feeding the clansmen, and until this is done the husband cannot eat the food cooked by her. ”

“ The respect paid to Nâga women, the influence which they exercised, not merely on their own people, but also in no less degree on the rulers of the country, the fame of their beauty, the praise of their wisdom—all this finds manifold expression in the tales of the Kashmîr chronicle, and in many other legends based upon the facts of real life. ”

“ The adoption of a sister’s son is prohibited; as a rule a man adopts the son of his brother or daughter. Adoption is performed in the presence of and with the advice and approval of, the assembled brethren. The man and his wife take their seats in the assembly, and the wife takes the boy into her lap and acknowledges him as her own child. A distribution of food or sweetmeats follows and concludes the ceremony. There is no custom analogous to Beena marriage recognised where the bridegroom is taken into the household of his father-in-law and serves for his bride. ”

“ Immediately out of the pitcher came a fair man wearing red clothes, and the saint said to Lâl Beg:—“This was the order of Almighty God that you should be the prophet of the sweepers and intercede for them at the day of judgment.” Mehtar Ilias took him home, and placing him under a nîm tree filled his pipe for him (a custom of the sweepers to the present day towards their religious teachers) and worshipped him. Lâl Beg became at once invisible, and Mehtar Ilias went to the great saint and told him the story. ”

“ Adoption is permitted to a sonless man or one whose son is permanently expelled from caste; but there is no idea of religious merit in adoption. The son adopted must be of the sept (kuri) of the adopter, and is in most cases a brother’s son. Having once adopted he cannot adopt again as long as the adopted son is alive. A bachelor, an ascetic, or a blind man cannot adopt, nor can a married woman without the leave of her husband, and under no circumstances has the widow this power. A man may give his eldest, but not his only son, in adoption to another. ”

“ A fire sacrifice is made with meat and a charm recited, which runs—“Kill, kill; estrange, and make him hated of all; make him subservient to my will; devour him, consume him, break him, destroy him; make my enemies obey me.” ”

“ Rich people cremate the dead; poorer people bury, or consign the corpse to some river. The dead are buried face downwards to bar the return of the ghost; the feet face the north; some bury without a shroud. After cremation the ashes are usually taken to the Ganges, but some people leave them at the pyre. Fire is provided by a sweeper, who gets a small fee and the bamboos of the bier as his perquisite. After the cremation is over, some on their way home bathe, but this is not essential. ”

“ Polygamy is allowed, but monogamy is the rule. The head wife alone joins in family worship. Concubinage and polyandry are prohibited. The marriage age for boys or girls is ten or twelve. There is no purchasing of brides, but her relations have to give a dowry, and it is considered discreditable not to provide this to a suitable amount. Adultery in husband or wife, and eating or smoking with a strange caste, are grounds for divorce. A divorced woman cannot re-marry. Widow marriage in the sagâi form is allowed. ”

“ A man cannot take a second wife unless he proves to the satisfaction of the tribal council that the first wife is barren, disobedient, extravagant, or a thief, and even then he has to pay a fine to the council, which is spent in a tribal feast. They seldom take more than two wives. They have the usual forms of marriage,—Charhauwa for the well-to-do, Dola for poor people, and Sagâi for widows. ”

“ The terms Mazhabi and Rangreta denote Chûhras who have become Sikhs. The Mazhabis take the pahul or formula of initiation, wear their hair long, and abstain from tobacco, and they apparently refuse to touch night-soil, though performing all the other offices hereditary to the Chûhra caste. Their great Guru is Tegh Bahâdur, whose mutilated body was brought back from Delhi by Chûhras, who were then and there admitted to the faith as a reward for their devotion. But though good Sikhs as far as religious observance is concerned, the taint of hereditary pollution is upon them ”

“ Traces of an earlier matriarchal system may perhaps be discerned in the legend already referred to, which represented Râja Agar Nâth as successfully contending with Indra for the hand of the daughters of two Nâga Râjas, and obtaining from Lakshmi the special favor that his children by one of them should bear their father’s name. The memory of this Nâga princess is still held in honor. “Our mother’s house is of the race of the snake” (jât kâ nânihâl nâgbansi hai) say the Agarwâlas of Behâr; and for this reason no Agarwâla, whether Hindu or Jain, will kill or molest a snake. ”

“ If a widow gets tattooed it is believed to bring trouble on the village. There are twenty-four forms of tattoo, any of which may be used by any woman of any of the castes. In general opinion tattooing is a sacred rite by which the body is sanctified. They say that the road to the heaven of Parameswar is full of difficulties, and at the end is a great gate guarded by terrible demons. The keepers will let no woman pass who is not tattooed. Accordingly every woman has to be tattooed, and in particular it is advisable to have the mark of some god marked on the body. ”

“ The prohibition of marriage with a cousin on the mother’s side has been accepted as an indication of the uncertainty of male parentage. There can be no doubt that in Northern India there is some special connection between a boy and his maternal uncle, as is shown by many instances drawn from the usages of the inferior tribes, such as the Agariya, Majhwâr and other Dravidian races. We also find among the Doms and Dharkârs that it is the [ccvii] sister’s son who performs the duties of priest at the cremation and worship of the sainted dead, which follows it. ”

“ Regular marriages seldom occur among them, because nearly all the girls are reserved for prostitution, and the men keep concubines drawn from any fairly respectable caste. So far is this the rule, that in Farrukhâbâd, it is alleged that if a man marry a girl of the tribe, he is put out of caste; and in Etâwah, if a man marry a girl who has been prostituted, he is obliged to pay a fine to the tribal council. ”

“ In the above table the great cephalic similarity between the Kâyasth and the Chandâl in Bengal, between the Brâhman and the Bind in Bihâr, and between the Bâbhan and the Bhar in the North-Western Provinces, seems to prove beyond question how very similar must have been the racial origin of all. In fact the medium or mesaticephalic head is the most common in the plains of Bengal and Bihâr, being the result of interbreeding between the round-headed Mongol and the long-headed Drâvir, the Aryan having little to do with the physiognomy of their offspring, except in Upper India. ”