_Dhakar._ [522]--A small caste belonging solely to the Bastar State. In
1911 they numbered 5500 persons in Bastar, and it is noticeable
that there were nearly twice as many women as men. The term Dhakar
connotes a man of illegitimate descent and is applied to the Kirars
of the Central Provinces and perhaps to other castes of mixed Rajput
origin. But in Bastar it is the special designation of a considerable
class of persons who are the descendants of alliances between Brahman
and Rajput immigrants and women of the indigenous tribes. They are
divided, like the Halbas, into two groups--Purait or pure, and Surait
or mixed. The son of a Brahman or Rajput father by a Rawat (herdsman)
or Halba mother is a Purait, but one born from a woman of the Muria,
Marar, Nai or Kalar castes is a Surait. But these latter can become
Puraits after two or three generations, and the same rule applies to
the son of a Dhakar father by a Halba or Rawat woman, who also ranks in
the first place as a Surait. Descendants of a Dhakar father by a Muria
or other low-caste woman, however, always remain Suraits. The Puraits
and Suraits form endogamous groups, and the latter will accept cooked
food from the former. The more respectable Dhakars round Jagdalpur
are now tending, however, to call themselves Rajputs and refuse to
admit any one of mixed birth into their community.
One legend of their origin is that the first Dhakar was the offspring
of a Brahman cook of the Raja of Bastar with a Kosaria Rawat woman;
and though this is discredited by the Dhakars it is probably a fairly
correct version of the facts. An inferior branch of the caste exists
which is known as Chikrasar; it is related of them that their ancestors
once went out hunting and set the forest on fire as a method of driving
the game, as they occasionally do still. They came across the roasted
body of a dog in the forest and ate it without knowing what animal it
was. In the stomach, however, some cooked rice was found, and hence it
was known as a dog and they were branded as dog-eaters. As a penalty
the Raja imposed on them the duty of thatching a hut for him at the
Dasahra festival, which their descendants still perform. The other
Dhakars refuse to marry or eat with them, and it is clear from the
custom of thatching the Raja's hut that they are a primitive and
jungly branch of the caste.