Agaria. [1]--A small Dravidian caste, who are an offshoot of the Gond
tribe. The Agarias have adopted the profession of iron-smelting and
form a separate caste. They numbered 9500 persons in 1911 and live
on the Maikal range in the Mandla, Raipur and Bilaspur Districts.
The name probably signifies a worker with _ag_ or fire. An Agaria
subcaste of Lohars also exists, many of whom are quite probably Gonds,
but they are not included in the regular caste. Similar Dravidian
castes of Agarias are to be found in Mirzapur and Bengal. The Agarias
are quite distinct from the Agharia cultivating caste of the Uriya
country. The Raipur Agarias still intermarry with the Rawanbansi
Gonds of the District. The Agarias think that their caste has existed
from the beginning of the world, and that the first Agaria made
the ploughshare with which the first bullocks furrowed the primeval
soil. The caste has two endogamous divisions, the Patharia and the
Khuntia Agarias. The Patharias place a stone on the mouth of the
bellows to fix them in the ground for smelting, while the Khuntias
use a peg. The two subcastes do not even take water from one another.
Their exogamous sections have generally the same names as those of
the Gonds, as Sonwani, Dhurua, Tekam, Markam, Uika, Purtai, Marai,
and others. A few names of Hindi origin are also found, as Ahindwar,
Ranchirai and Rathoria, which show that some Hindus have probably been
amalgamated with the caste. Ahindwar or Aindwar and Ranchirai mean
a fish and a bird respectively in Hindi, while Rathoria is a _gotra_
both of Rajputs and Telis. The Gond names are probably also those of
animals, plants or other objects, but their meaning has now generally
been forgotten. Tekam or _teka_ is a teak tree. Sonwani is a sept
found among several of the Dravidian tribes, and the lower Hindu
castes. A person of the Sonwani sept is always chosen to perform
the ceremony of purification and readmission into caste of persons
temporarily excommunicated. His duty often consists in pouring on such
a person a little water in which gold has been placed to make it holy,
and hence the name is considered to mean Sonapani or gold-water. The
Agarias do not know the meanings of their section names and therefore
have no totemistic observances. But they consider that all persons
belonging to one _gotra_ are descended from a common ancestor, and
marriage within the _gotra_ is therefore prohibited. As among the
Gonds, first cousins are allowed to marry.