The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume IV Part 23

She put on her clothes and went to the forest; she met her lover and said you are welcome to me.

He went to the bazar and bought potatoes; but if he had loved me he would have brought me liquor.

The fish in the river are on the look-out; the Brahman'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. [286]

The broken areca-nuts lie in the forest; when a man comes to misfortune no one will help him.

The broken areca-nuts cannot be mended; and two hearts which are sundered cannot be joined.

Ask me for five rupees and I will give you twenty-five; but I will not give my lover for the whole world.

I will put bangles on my arm; when the other wife sees me she will die of jealousy.

Break the bangles which your husband gave you; and put others on your wrists in my name.

O my lover, give me bangles; make me armlets, for I am content with you.

My lover went to the bazar at Lakhanpur; but he has not brought me even a _choli_ [287] that I liked.

I had gone to the bazar and bought fish; she is so ugly that the flies would not settle on her.

Nagasia

_Nagasia, Naksia._--A primitive tribe found princ.i.p.ally in the Chota Nagpur States. They now number 16,000 persons in the Central Provinces, being returned almost entirely from Jashpur and Sarguja. The census returns are, however, liable to be inaccurate as the Nagasias frequently call themselves Kisan, a term which is also applied to the Oraons. The Nagasias say that they are the true Kisans whereas the Oraons are only so by occupation. The Oraons, on the other hand, call the Nagasias Kisada. The tribe derive their name from the Nag or cobra, and they say that somebody left an infant in the forest of Setambu and a cobra came and spread its hood over the child to protect him from the rays of the sun. Some Mundas happened to pa.s.s by and on seeing this curious sight they thought the child must be destined to greatness, so they took him home and made him their king, calling him Nagasia, and from him the tribe are descended. The episode of the snake is, of course, a stock legend related by many tribes, but the story appears to indicate that the Nagasias are an offshoot of the Mundas; and this hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that Nagbasia is often used as an alternative name for the Mundas by their Hindu neighbours. The term Nagbasia is supposed to mean the original settlers (_basia_) in Nag (Chota Nagpur).

The tribe are divided into the Telha, Dhuria and Senduria groups. The Telhas are so called because at the marriage ceremony they mark the forehead of the bride with _tel_ (oil), while the Dhurias instead of oil use dust (_dhur_) taken from the sole of the bridegroom's foot, and the Sendurias like most Hindu castes employ vermilion (_sendur_) for this purpose. The Telhas and Dhurias marry with each other, but not with the Sendurias, who consider themselves to be superior to the others and use the term Nagbansia or 'Descendants of the Snake'

as their tribal name. The Telha and Dhuria women do not wear gla.s.s bangles on their arms but only bracelets of bra.s.s, while the Sendurias wear gla.s.s bangles and also armlets above the elbow. Telha women do not wear nose-rings or tattoo their bodies, while the Sendurias do both. The Telhas say that the tattooing needle and vermilion, which they formerly employed in their marriages, were stolen from them by Wagdeo or the tiger G.o.d. So they hit upon sesamum oil as a subst.i.tute, which must be pressed for ceremonial purposes in a bamboo basket by unmarried boys using a plough-yoke. This is probably, Mr. Hira Lal remarks, merely the primitive method of extracting oil, prior to the invention of the Teli's _ghani_ or oil-press; and the practice is an instance of the common rule that articles employed in ceremonial and religious rites should be prepared by the ancient and primitive methods which for ordinary purposes have been superseded by more recent labour-saving inventions.

Nahal

1. The tribe and its subdivisions

_Nahal, Nihal._ [288]--A forest tribe who are probably a mixture of Bhils and Korkus. In 1911 they numbered 12,000 persons, of whom 8000 belonged to the Hoshangabad, Nimar and Betul Districts, and nearly 4000 to Berar. They were cla.s.sed at the census as a subtribe of Korkus. According to one story they are descended from a Bhil father and a Korku mother, and the writer of the _Khandesh Gazetteer_ calls them the most savage of the Bhils. But in the Central Provinces their family or sept names are the same as those of the Korkus, and they speak the Korku language. Mr. Kitts [289] says that the Korkus who first went to Berar found the Nahals in possession of the Melghat hills. Gradually the latter caste lost their power and became the village drudges of the former. He adds that the Nahals were fast losing their language, and the younger generation spoke only Korku. The two tribes were very friendly, and the Nahals acknowledged the superior position of the Korkus. This, if it accurately represents the state of things prevailing for a long period, and was not merely an incidental feature of their relative position at the time Mr. Kitts'

observations were made, would tend to show that the Nahals were the older tribe and had been subjected by the Korkus, just as the Korkus themselves and the Baigas have given way to the Gonds. Mr. Crosthwaite also states that the Nahal is the drudge of the Korku and belongs to a race which is supposed to have been glorious before the Korku star arose, and which is now fast dying out. In any case there is no doubt that the Nahals are a very mixed tribe, as they will even now admit into the community Gonds, Korkus and nearly all the Hindu castes, though in some localities they will not eat from the other tribes and the lower Hindu castes and therefore refuse to admit them. There are, moreover, two subdivisions of the caste called Korku and Marathi Nahals respectively. The latter are more Hinduised than the former and disclaim any connection with the Korkus. The Nahals have totemistic exogamous septs. Those of the Kasa sept wors.h.i.+p a tortoise and also a bell-metal plate, which is their family G.o.d. They never eat off a bell-metal plate except on one day in the month of Magh (January), when they wors.h.i.+p it. The members of the Nagbel sept wors.h.i.+p the betel-vine or 'snake-creeper,' and refrain from chewing betel-leaves, and they also wors.h.i.+p the Nag or cobra and do not kill it, thus having a sort of double totem. The Bhawaria sept, named after the _bhaunr_ or black bee, do not eat honey, and if they see a person taking the honey-comb from a nest they will run away. The Khadia sept wors.h.i.+p the spirits of their ancestors enshrined in a heap of stones (_khad_), or according to another account they wors.h.i.+p a snake which sits on a heap of pebbles. The Surja sept wors.h.i.+p Surya or the sun by offering him a fowl in the month of Pus (December-January), and some members of the sept keep a fast every Sunday. The Saoner sept wors.h.i.+p the _san_ or flax plant.

2. Marriage

Marriage is prohibited between members of the same sept, but there are no other restrictions and first cousins may marry. Both s.e.xes usually marry when adult, and s.e.xual license before wedlock is tolerated. A Brahman is employed only for fixing the date of the ceremony. The princ.i.p.al part of the marriage is the knotting together of the bride's and bridegroom's clothes on two successive days. They also gamble with tamarind seeds, and it is considered a lucky union if the bridegroom wins. A bride-price is usually paid consisting of Rs. 1-4 to Rs. 5 in cash, some grain and a piece of cloth for the bride's mother. The remarriage of widows is allowed, and the couple go five times round a bamboo stick which is held up to represent a spear, the ceremony being called _barchhi se bhanwar phirna_ or the marriage of the spear.

3. Religion

The Nahals wors.h.i.+p the forest G.o.d called Jharkhandi in the month of Chait, and until this rite has been performed they do not use the leaves or fruits of the _palas_, [290] _aonla_ [291] or mango trees. When the G.o.d is wors.h.i.+pped they collect branches and leaves of these trees and offer cooked food to them and thereafter commence using the new leaves, and the fruit and timber. They also wors.h.i.+p the ordinary village G.o.dlings. The dead are buried, except in the case of members of the Surja or sun sept, whose corpses are burnt. Cooked food is offered at the grave for four days after the death.

4. Occupation

The Nahals were formerly a community of hill-robbers, 'Nahal, Bhil, Koli' being the phrase generally used in old doc.u.ments to designate the marauding bands of the western Satpura hills. The Raja of Jitgarh and Mohkot in Nimar has a long account in his genealogy of a treacherous ma.s.sacre of a whole tribe of Nahals by his ancestor in Akbar's time, in recognition of which the Jitgarh pargana was granted to the family. Mr. Kitts speaks of the Nahals of Berar as having once been much addicted to cattle-lifting, and this propensity still exists in a minor degree in the Central Provinces, accentuated probably by the fact that a considerable number of Nahals follow the occupation of graziers. Some of them are also village watchmen, and another special avocation of theirs is the collection of the oil of the marking-nut tree (_Semecarpus anacardium_). This is to some extent a dangerous trade, as the oil causes swellings on the body, besides staining the skin and leaving a peculiar odour. The workers wrap a fourfold layer of cloth round their fingers with ashes between each fold, while the rest of the body is also protected by cloth when gathering the nuts and pounding them to extract the oil. At the end of the day's work powdered tamarind and _ghi_ are rubbed on the whole body. The oil is a stimulant, and is given to women after delivery and to persons suffering from rheumatism.

5. Social status

The social status of the Nahals is very low and they eat the flesh of almost all animals, while those who graze cattle eat beef. Cow-killing is not regarded as an offence. They are also dirty and do not bathe for weeks together. To get maggots in a wound is, however, regarded as a grave offence, and the sufferer is put out of the village and has to live alone until he recovers.

Nai

List of Paragraphs

1. _Structure of the caste_.

2. _Marriage and other customs_.

3. _Occupation_.

4. _Other services_.

5. _Duties at weddings_.

6. _The barber-surgeon._ 7. _A barber at the court of Oudh_.

8. _Character and position of the barber_.

9. _Beliefs about hair_.

10. _Hair of kings and priests_.

11. _The beard_.

12. _Significance of removal of the hair and shaving the head_.

13. _Shaving the head by mourners_.

14. _Hair offerings_.

15. _Keeping hair unshorn during a vow_.

16. _Disposal of cut hair and nails_.

17. _Superst.i.tions about shaving the hair_.

18. _Reasons why the hair was considered the source of strength._