The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 4

8. Disposal of the dead

The dead may be either buried or burnt; in the former case the corpse is laid with the feet to the north. Mourning is observed only for three days and propitiatory offerings are made to the spirits of the dead. If a man is killed by a tiger his family make a wooden image of a tiger and worship it.

9. Religion

Devi is the principal deity of the Mālis. Weddings are celebrated before her temple and large numbers of goats are sacrificed to the favourite goddess at her festival in the month of Māgh (January). Many of the Marārs of Bālāghāt are Kabīrpanthis and wear the necklace of that sect; but they appear none the less to intermarry freely with their Hindu caste-fellows.169 After the birth of a child it is stated that all the members of the sept to which the parents belong remain impure for five days, and no one will take food or water from them.

10. Occupation

The Māli combines the callings of a gardener and nurseryman. “In laying out a flower-garden and in arranging beds,” Mr. Shearing remarks,170 “the Māli is exceedingly expert. His powers in this respect are hardly surpassed by gardeners in England. He lacks of course the excellent botanical knowledge of many English gardeners, and also the peculiar skill displayed by them in grafting and crossing, and in watching the habits of plants. Yet in manipulative labour, especially when superintended by a European, he is, though much slower in execution, almost if not quite equal to gardeners at home.” They are excellent and very laborious cultivators, and show much skill in intensive cultivation and the use of water. Mālis are the best sugarcane growers of Betūl and their holdings usually pay a higher rental than those of other castes. “In Bālāghāt,” Mr. Low remarks,171 “they are great growers of tobacco and sugarcane, favouring the alluvial land on the banks of rivers. They mostly irrigate by a dhekli or dipping lift, from temporary wells or from water-holes in rivers. The pole of the lift has a weight at one end and a kerosene tin suspended from the other. Another form of lift is a hollowed tree trunk worked on a fulcrum, but this only raises the water a foot or two. The Marārs do general cultivation as well; but as a class are not considered skilled agriculturists. The proverb about their cultivating status is:

Marār, Māli jote tāliTāli margayi, dhare kudāli

or, ‘The Marār yokes cows; if the cow dies he takes to the pickaxe’; implying that he is not usually rich enough to keep bullocks.” The saying has also a derogatory sense, as no good Hindu would yoke a cow to the plough. Another form of lift used by the Kāchhis is the Persian wheel. In this two wheels are fixed above the well or tank and long looped ropes pass over them and down into the well, between which a line of earthen pots is secured. As the ropes move on the wheels the pots descend into the well, are filled with water, brought up, and just after they reach the apex of the wheel and turn to descend again, the water pours out to a hollow open tree-trunk, from which a channel conveys it to the field. The wheel which turns the rope is worked by a man pedalling, but he cannot do more than about three hours a day. The common lift for gardens is the mot or bag made of the hide of a bullock or buffalo. This is usually worked by a pair of bullocks moving forwards down a slope to raise the mot from the well and backwards up the slope to let it down when empty.

Bullocks drawing water with mot

11. Traits and character

“It is necessary,” the account continues, “for the Marār’s business for one member at least of his family to go to market with his vegetables; and the Marārin is a noteworthy feature in all bazārs, sitting with her basket or garment spread on the ground, full of white onions and garlic, purple brinjals and scarlet chillies, with a few handfuls of strongly flavoured green stuff. Whether from the publicity which it entails on their women or from whatever cause, the Marārin does not bear the best of reputations for chastity; and is usually considered rather a bold, coarse creature. The distinctive feature of her attire is the way in which she ties up her body-cloth so as to leave a tail sticking up behind; whence the proverb shouted after her by rude little boys: ‘Jump from roof to roof, Monkey. Pull the tail of the Marārin, Monkey,’ She also rejoices in a very large tikli or spangle on her forehead and in a peculiar kind of angia (waistcoat). The caste are usually considered rather clannish and morose. They live in communities by themselves, and nearly always inhabit a separate hamlet of the village. The Marārs of a certain place are said to have boycotted a village carpenter who lost an axe belonging to one of their number, so that he had to leave the neighbourhood for lack of custom.”

12. Other functions of the Māli

Many Mālis live in the towns and keep vegetable- or flower-gardens just outside. They sell flowers, and the Māli girls are very good flower-sellers, Major Sutherland says, being famous for their coquetry. A saying about them is: “The crow among birds, the jackal among beasts, the barber among men and the Mālin among women; all these are much too clever.” The Māli also prepares the maur or marriage-crown, made from the leaves of the date-palm, both for the bride and bridegroom at marriages. In return he gets a present of a rupee, a piece of cloth and a day’s food. He also makes the garlands which are used for presentation at entertainments, and supplies the daily bunches of flowers which are required as offerings for Mahādeo. The Māli keeps garlands for sale in the bazār, and when a well-to-do person passes he goes up and puts a garland round his neck and expects a present of a pice or two.

13. Physical appearance

“Physically,” Mr. Low states, “the Marār is rather a poor-looking creature, dark and undersized; but the women are often not bad looking, and dressed up in their best at a wedding, rattling their castanets and waving light-coloured silk handkerchiefs, give a very graceful dance. The caste are not as a rule celebrated for their cleanliness. A polite way of addressing a Marār is to call him Patel.”

Mallāh

Mallāh, Malha.172—A small caste of boatmen and fishermen in the Jubbulpore and Narsinghpur Districts, which numbered about 5000 persons in 1911. It is scarcely correct to designate the Mallāhs as a distinct caste, as in both these Districts it appears from inquiry that the term is synonymous with Kewat. Apparently, however, the Mallāhs do form a separate endogamous group, and owing to many of them having adopted the profession of growing hemp, a crop which respectable Hindu castes usually refuse to cultivate, it is probable that they would not be allowed to intermarry with the Kewats of other Districts. In the United Provinces Mr. Crooke states that the Mallāhs, though, as their Arabic name indicates, of recent origin, have matured into a definite social group, including a number of endogamous tribes. The term Mallāh has nothing to do with the Mulla or Muhammadan priest among the frontier tribes, but comes from an Arabic word meaning ‘to be salt,’ or, according to another derivation, ‘to move the wings as a bird.’173 The Mallāhs of the Central Provinces are also, in spite of their Arabic name, a purely Hindu caste. In Narsinghpur they say that their original ancestor was one Bali or Balirām, who was a boatman and was so strong that he could carry his boat to the river and back under his armpit. On one occasion he ferried Rāma across the Ganges in Benāres, and it is said that Rāma gave him a horse to show his gratitude; but Balirām was so ignorant that he placed the bridle on the horse’s tail instead of the head. And from this act of Balirām’s arose the custom of having the rudder of a boat at the stern instead of at the bow. The Mallāhs in the Central Provinces appear from their family names to be immigrants from Bundelkhand. Their customs resemble those of lower-class Hindus. Girls are usually married under the age of twelve years, and the remarriage of widows is permitted, while divorce may be effected in the presence of the panchāyat or caste committee by the husband and wife breaking a straw between them. They are scantily clothed and are generally poor. A proverb about them says:

Jahān bethen MalaoTahan lage alao,

or, ‘Where Mallāhs sit, there is always a fire.’ This refers to their custom of kindling fires on the river-bank to protect themselves from cold. In Narsinghpur the Mallāhs have found a profitable opening in the cultivation of hemp, a crop which other Hindu castes until recently tabooed on account probably of the dirty nature of the process of cleaning out the fibre and the pollution necessarily caused to the water-supply. They sow and cut hemp on Sundays and Wednesdays, which are regarded as auspicious days. They also grow melons, and will not enter a melon-field with their shoes on or allow a woman during her periodical impurity to approach it. The Mallāhs are poor and illiterate, but rank with Dhīmars and Kewats, and Brāhmans will take water from their hands.

Māna

Māna.174—A Dravidian caste of cultivators and labourers belonging to the Chānda District, from which they have spread to Nāgpur, Bhandāra and Bālāghāt. In 1911 they numbered nearly 50,000 persons, of whom 34,000 belonged to Chānda. The origin of the caste is obscure. In the Chānda Settlement Report of 1869 Major Lucie Smith wrote of them: “Tradition asserts that prior to the Gond conquest the Mānas reigned over the country, having their strongholds at Surajgarh in Ahiri and at Mānikgarh in the Mānikgarh hills, now of Hyderābād, and that after a troubled rule of two hundred years they fell before the Gonds. In appearance they are of the Gond type, and are strongly and stoutly made; while in character they are hardy, industrious and truthful. Many warlike traditions still linger among them, and doubtless in days gone by they did their duty as good soldiers, but they have long since hung up sword and shield and now rank among the best cultivators of rice in Chānda.” Another local tradition states that a line of Māna princes ruled at Wairāgarh. The names of three princes are remembered: Kurumpruhoda, the founder of the line; Surjāt Badwāik, who fortified Surjāgarh; and Gahilu, who built Mānikgarh. As regards the name Mānikgarh, it may be mentioned that the tutelary deity of the Nāgvansi kings of Bastar, who ruled there before the accession of the present Rāj-Gond dynasty in the fourteenth century, was Mānikya Devi, and it is possible that the chiefs of Wairāgarh were connected with the Bastar kings. Some of the Mānas say that they, as well as the Gowāris, are offshoots of the Gond tribe; and a local saying to the effect that ‘The Gond, the Gowāri and the Māna eat boiled juāri or beans on leaf-plates’ shows that they are associated together in the popular mind. Hislop states that the Ojhas, or soothsayers and minstrels of the Gonds, have a subdivision of Māna Ojhas, who lay claim to special sanctity, refusing to take food from any other caste.175 The Gonds have a subdivision called Mannewār, and as wār is only a Telugu suffix for the plural, the proper name Manne closely resembles Māna. It is shown in the article on the Parja tribe that the Parjas were a class of Gonds or a tribe akin to them, who were dominant in Bastar prior to the later immigration under the ancestors of the present Bastar dynasty. And the most plausible hypothesis as to the past history of the Mānas is that they were also the rulers of some tracts of Chānda, and were displaced like the Parjas by a Gond invasion from the south.

In Bhandāra, where the Mānas hold land, it is related that in former times a gigantic kite lived on the hill of Ghurkundi, near Sākoli, and devoured the crops of the surrounding country by whole fields at a time. The king of Chānda proclaimed that whoever killed the kite would be granted the adjoining lands. A Māna shot the kite with an arrow and its remains were taken to Chānda in eight carts, and as his reward he received the grant of a zamīndāri. In appearance the Mānas, or at least some of them, are rather fine men, nor do their complexion and features show more noticeable traces of aboriginal descent than those of the local Hindus. But their neighbours in Chānda and Bastar, the Māria Gonds, are also taller and of a better physical type than the average Dravidian, so that their physical appearance need not militate against the above hypothesis. They retained their taste for fighting until within quite recent times, and in Kātol and other towns below the Satpūra hills, Mānas were regularly enlisted as a town guard for repelling the Pindāri raids. Their descendants still retain the ancestral matchlocks, and several of them make good use of these as professional shikāris or hunters. Many of them are employed as servants by landowners and moneylenders for the collection of debts or the protection of crops, and others are proprietors, cultivators and labourers, while a few even lend money on their own account. Mānas hold three zamīndāri estates in Bhandāra and a few villages in Chānda; here they are considered to be good cultivators, but have the reputation as a caste of being very miserly, and though possessed of plenty, living only on the poorest and coarsest food.176 The Māna women are proverbial for the assistance which they render to their husbands in the work of cultivation.

Owing to their general adoption of Marātha customs, the Mānas are now commonly regarded as a caste and not a forest tribe, and this view may be accepted. They have two subcastes, the Badwāik Mānas, or soldiers, and the Khād Mānas, who live in the plains and are considered to be of impure descent. Badwāik or ‘The Great Ones’ is a titular term applied to a person carrying arms, and assumed by certain Rājpūts and also by some of the lower castes. A third group of Mānas are now amalgamated with the Kunbis as a regular subdivision of that caste, though they are regarded as somewhat lower than the others. They have also a number of exogamous septs of the usual titular and totemistic types, the few recognisable names being Marāthi. It is worth noticing that several pairs of these septs, as Jamāre and Gazbe, Narnari and Chudri, Wāgh and Rāwat, and others are prohibited from intermarriage. And this may be a relic of some wider scheme of division of the type common among the Australian aborigines. The social customs of the Mānas are the same as those of the other lower Marātha castes, as described in the articles on Kunbi, Kohli and Mahār. A bride-price of Rs. 12–8 is usually paid, and if the bridegroom’s father has the money, he takes it with him on going to arrange for the match. Only one married woman of the bridegroom’s family accompanies him to the wedding, and she throws rice over him five times. Four days in the year are appointed for the celebration of weddings, the festivals of Shivrātri and of Akhātij, and a day each in the months of Māgh (January) and Phāgun (February). This rule, however, is not universal. Brāhmans do not usually officiate at their ceremonies, but they employ a Brāhman to prepare the rice which is thrown over the couples. Marriage within the sept is forbidden, as well as the union of the children of two sisters. But the practice of marrying a brother’s daughter to a sister’s son is a very favourite one, being known as Māhunchār, and in this respect the Mānas resemble the Gonds. When a widow is to be remarried, she stops on the way by the bank of a stream as she is proceeding to her new husband’s house, and here her clothes are taken off and buried by an exorcist with a view to laying the first husband’s spirit and preventing it from troubling the new household. If a woman goes wrong with a man of another caste she is not finally cast out, but if she has a child she must first dispose of it to somebody else after it is weaned. She may then be re-admitted into caste by having her hair shaved off and giving three feasts; the first is prepared by the caste and eaten outside her house, the second is prepared by her relatives and eaten within her house, and at the third the caste reinstate her by partaking of food cooked by herself. The dead are either buried or burnt; in the former case a feast is given immediately after the burial and no further mourning is observed; in the latter the period of mourning is three days. As among the Gonds, the dead are laid with feet to the north. A woman is impure for seven days after child-birth.

The Mānas have Bhāts or genealogists of their own caste, a separate one being appointed for each sept. The Bhāt of any sept can only accept gifts from members of that sept, though he may take food from any one of the caste. The Bhāts are in the position of beggars, and the other Mānas will not take food from them. Every man must have a Bhāt for his family under penalty of being temporarily put out of caste. It is said that the Bhāts formerly had books showing the pedigrees of the different families, but that once in a spirit of arrogance they placed their shoes upon the books; and the other Mānas, not brooking this insolence, burnt the books. The gravity of such an act may be realised when it is stated that if anybody even threatens to hit a Māna with a shoe, the indignity put upon him is so great that he is temporarily excluded from caste and penalised for readmission. Since this incident the Bhāts have to address the Mānas as ‘Brahma,’ to show their respect, the Māna replying ‘Rām, Rām.’ Their women wear short loin-cloths, exposing part of the thigh, like the Gonds. They eat pork and drink liquor, but will take cooked food only from Brāhmans.

Mānbhao

1. History and nature of the sect

Mānbhao.177—A religious sect or order, which has now become a caste, belonging to the Marātha Districts of the Central Provinces and to Berār. Their total strength in India in 1911 was 10,000 persons, of whom the Central Provinces and Berār contained 4000. The name would appear to have some such meaning as ‘The reverend brothers.’ The Mānbhaos are stated to be a Vaishnavite order founded in Berār some two centuries ago.178 They themselves say that their order is a thousand years old and that it was founded by one Arjun Bhat, who lived at Domegaon, near Ahmadnagar. He was a great Sanskrit scholar and a devotee of Krishna, and preached his doctrines to all except the Impure castes. Ridhpur, in Berār, is the present headquarters of the order, and contains a monastery and three temples, dedicated to Krishna and Dattātreya,179 the only deities recognised by the Mānbhaos. Each temple is named after a village, and is presided over by a Mahant elected from the celibate Mānbhaos. There are other Mahants, also known after the names of villages or towns in which the monasteries over which they preside are located. Among these are Sheone, from the village near Chāndur in Amraoti District; Akulne, a village near Ahmadnagar; Lāsorkar, from Lāsor, near Aurangābād; Mehkarkar, from Mehkar in Buldāna; and others. The order thus belongs to Berār and the adjoining parts of India. Colonel Mackenzie describes Ridhpur as follows: “The name is said to be derived from ridh, meaning blood, a Rākshas or demon having been killed there by Parasurāma, and it owes its sanctity to the fact that the god lived there. Black stones innumerable scattered about the town show where the god’s footsteps became visible. At Ridhpur Krishna is represented by an ever-open, sleeplessly watching eye, and some Mānbhaos carry about a small black stone disk with an eye painted on it as an amulet.” Frequently their shrines contain no images, but are simply chabutras or platforms built over the place where Krishna or Dattātreya left marks of their footprints. Over the platform is a small veranda, which the Mānbhaos kiss, calling upon the name of the god. Sukli, in Bhandāra, is also a headquarters of the caste, and contains many Mānbhao tombs. Here they burn camphor in honour of Dattātreya and make offerings of cocoanuts. They make pilgrimages to the different shrines at the full moons of Chait (March) and Kārtik (October). They pay reverence to no deities except Krishna and Dattātreya, and observe the festivals of Gokul Ashtami in August and Datta-Jayantri in December. They consider the month of Aghan (November) as holy, because Krishna called it so in the Bhāgavat-Gīta. This is their sacred book, and they reject the other Hindu scriptures. Their conception of Krishna is based on his description of himself to Arjun in the Bhāgavat-Gīta as follows: “‘Behold things wonderful, never seen before, behold in this my body the whole world, animate and inanimate. But as thou art unable to see with these thy natural eyes, I will give thee a heavenly eye, with which behold my divine connection.’

“The son of Pandu then beheld within the body of the god of gods standing together the whole universe divided forth into its vast variety. He was overwhelmed with wonder and every hair was raised on end. ‘But I am not to be seen as thou hast seen me even by the assistance of the Vedas, by mortification, by sacrifices, by charitable gifts: but I am to be seen, to be known in truth, and to be obtained by that worship which is offered up to me alone: and he goeth unto me whose works are done for me: who esteemeth me supreme: who is my servant only: who hath abandoned all consequences, and who liveth amongst all men without hatred.’”

Again: “He my servant is dear to me who is free from enmity, the friend of all nature, merciful, exempt from all pride and selfishness, the same in pain and in pleasure, patient of wrong, contented, constantly devout, of subdued passions and firm resolves, and whose mind and understanding are fixed on me alone.”

2. Divisions of the order

The Mānbhaos are now divided into three classes: the Brahmachāri; the Gharbāri; and the Bhope. The Brahmachāri are the ascetic members of the sect who subsist by begging and devote their lives to meditation, prayer and spiritual instruction. The Gharbāri are those who, while leading a mendicant life, wearing the distinctive black dress of the order and having their heads shaved, are permitted to get married with the permission of their Mahant or guru. The ceremony is performed in strict privacy inside a temple. A man sometimes signifies his choice of a spouse by putting his jholi or beggar’s wallet upon hers; if she lets it remain there, the betrothal is complete. A woman may show her preference for a man by bringing a pair of garlands and placing one on his head and the other on that of the image of Krishna. The marriage is celebrated according to the custom of the Kunbis, but without feasting or music. Widows are permitted to marry again. Married women do not wear bangles nor toe-rings nor the customary necklace of beads; they put on no jewellery, and have no choli or bodice. The Bhope or Bhoall, the third division of the caste, are wholly secular and wear no distinctive dress, except sometimes a black head-cloth. They may engage in any occupation that pleases them, and sometimes act as servants in the temples of the caste. In Berār they are divided into thirteen bas or orders, named after the disciples of Arjun Bhat, who founded the various shrines. The Mānbhaos are recruited by initiation of both men and women from any except the impure castes. Young children who have been vowed by their parents to a religious life or are left without relations, are taken into the order. Women usually join it either as children or late in life. The celibate members, male or female, live separately in companies like monks and nuns. They do not travel together, and hold services in their temples at different times. A woman admitted into the order is henceforward the disciple of the woman who initiated her by whispering the guru mantra or sacred verse into her ear. She addresses her preceptress as mother and the other women as sisters. The Mānbhaos are intelligent and generally literate, and they lead a simple and pure life. They are respectable and are respected by the people, and a guru or spiritual teacher is often taken from them in place of a Brāhman or Gosain. They often act as priests or gurus to the Mahārs, for whom Brāhmans will not perform these services. Their honesty and humility are proverbial among the Kunbis, and are in pleasing contrast to the character of many of the Hindu mendicant orders. They consider it essential that all their converts should be able to read the Bhāgavat-Gīta or a commentary on it, and for this purpose teach them to read and write during the rainy season when they are assembled at one of their monasteries.