_Bharia, Bharia-Bhumia._ [277]--A Dravidian tribe numbering about
50,000 persons and residing principally in the Jubbulpore District,
which contains a half of the total number. The others are found in
Chhindwara and Bilaspur. The proper name of the tribe is Bharia,
but they are often called Bharia-Bhumia, because many of them hold
the office of Bhumia or priest of the village gods and of the lower
castes in Jubbulpore, and the Bharias prefer the designation of Bhumia
as being the more respectable. The term Bhumia or 'Lord of the soil'
is an alternative for Bhuiya, the name of another Dravidian tribe,
and no doubt came to be applied to the office of village priest
because it was held by members of this tribe; the term Baiga has a
similar signification in Mandla and Balaghat, and is applied to the
village priest though he may not belong to the Baiga tribe at all. The
Bharias have forgotten their original affinities, and several stories
of the origin of the tribe are based on far-fetched derivations of
the name. One of these is to the effect that Arjun, when matters were
going badly with the Pandavas in their battle against the Kauravas,
took up a handful of _bharru_ grass and, pressing it, produced a
host of men who fought in the battle and became the ancestors of the
Bharias. And there are others of the same historical value. But there
is no reason to doubt that Bharia is the contemptuous form of Bhar, as
Telia for Teli, Jugia for Jogi, Kuria for Kori, and that the Bharias
belong to the great Bhar tribe who were once dominant in the eastern
part of the United Provinces, but are now at the bottom of the social
scale, and relegated by their conquerors to the degrading office
of swineherds. The Rajjhars, who appear to have formed a separate
caste as the landowning subdivision of the Bhars, like the Raj-Gonds
among Gonds, are said to be the descendants of a Raja and a Bharia
woman. The Rajjhars form a separate caste in the Central Provinces,
and the Bharias acknowledge some connection with them, but refuse to
take water from their hands, as they consider them to be of impure
blood. The Bharias also give Mahoba or Bandhogarh as their former
home, and these places are in the country of the Bhars. According
to tradition Raja Karna Deva, a former king of Dahal, the classical
name of the Jubbulpore country, was a Bhar, and it may be that the
immigration of the Bharias into Jubbulpore dates from his period, which
is taken as 1040 to 1080 A.D. While then it may be considered as fairly
certain that the Bharias are merely the Bhar tribe with a variant
of the name, it is clear from the titles of their family groups,
which will shortly be given, that they are an extremely mixed class
and consist largely of the descendants of members of other castes,
who, having lost their own social position, have taken refuge among
the Bharias at the bottom of the social scale. Mr. Crooke says of the
Bhars: [278] "The most probable supposition is that the Bhars were
a Dravidian race closely allied to the Kols, Cheros and Seoris, who
at an early date succumbed to the invading Aryans. This is borne out
by their appearance and physique, which closely resemble that of the
undoubted non-Aryan aborigines of the Vindhyan-Kaimur plateau." In
the Central Provinces the Bharias have been so closely associated
with the Gonds that they have been commonly considered to belong
to that tribe. Thus Mr. Drysdale says of them: [279] 'The Bharias
were the wildest of the wild Gonds and were inveterate _dhaya_ [280]
cutters.' Although, however, they have to some extent intermarried
with the Gonds, the Bharias were originally quite a distinct tribe,
and would belong to the Kolarian or Munda group but that they have
entirely forgotten their own language and speak only Hindi, though with
a peculiar intonation especially noticeable in the case of their women.