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The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
By
R.V. Russell
Of the Indian Civil Service Superintendent of Ethnography, Central
Provinces
Assisted by
Rai Bahadur Hira Lal
Extra Assistant Commissioner
Published Under the Orders of the Central Provinces Administration
In Four Volumes
Vol. I.
Macmillan and Co., Limited St. Martin's Street, London.
1916
PREFACE
This book is the result of the arrangement made by the Government
of India, on the suggestion of the late Sir Herbert Risley, for the
preparation of an ethnological account dealing with the inhabitants
of each of the principal Provinces of India. The work for the Central
Provinces was entrusted to the author, and its preparation, undertaken
in addition to ordinary official duties, has been spread over a number
of years. The prescribed plan was that a separate account should
be written of each of the principal tribes and castes, according
to the method adopted in Sir Herbert Risley's _Tribes and Castes of
Bengal_. This was considered to be desirable as the book is intended
primarily as a work of reference for the officers of Government, who
may desire to know something of the customs of the people among whom
their work lies. It has the disadvantage of involving a large amount
of repetition of the same or very similar statements about different
castes, and the result is likely therefore to be somewhat distasteful
to the ordinary reader. On the other hand, there is no doubt that this
method of treatment, if conscientiously followed out, will produce
more exhaustive results than a general account. Similar works for some
other Provinces have already appeared, as Mr. W. Crooke's _Castes and
Tribes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh_, Mr. Edgar Thurston's
_Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, and Mr. Ananta Krishna Iyer's
volumes on Cochin, while a Glossary for the Punjab by Mr. H.A. Rose
has been partly published. The articles on Religions and Sects were
not in the original scheme of the work, but have been subsequently
added as being necessary to render it a complete ethnological account
of the population. In several instances the adherents of the religion
or sect are found only in very small numbers in the Province, and
the articles have been compiled from standard works.
In the preparation of the book much use has necessarily been made of
the standard ethnological accounts of other parts of India, especially
Colonel Tod's _Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan_, Mr. J.D. Forbes'
_Rasmala or Annals of Gujarat_, Colonel Dalton's _Ethnology of Bengal_,
Dr. Buchanan's _Eastern India_, Sir Denzil Ibbetson's _Punjab Census
Report_ for 1881, Sir John Malcolm's _Memoir of Central India_, Sir
Edward Gait's _Bengal and India Census Reports_ and article on Caste
in Dr. Hastings' _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_, Colonel
(Sir William) Sleeman's _Report on the Badhaks_ and _Ramaseeana or
Vocabulary of the Thugs,_ Mr. Kennedy's _Criminal Classes of the Bombay
Presidency_, Major Gunthorpe's _Criminal Tribes of Bombay, Berar and
the Central Provinces_, the books of Mr. Crooke and Sir H. Risley
already mentioned, and the mass of valuable ethnological material
contained in the _Bombay Gazetteer _ (Sir J. Campbell), especially the
admirable volumes on _Hindus of Gujarat_ by Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam,
and _Parsis and Muhammadans of Gujarat_ by Khan Bahadur Fazlullah
Lutfullah Faridi, and Mr. Kharsedji Nasarvanji Seervai, J.P., and
Khan Bahadur Bamanji Behramji Patel. Other Indian ethnological works
from which I have made quotations are Dr. Wilson's _Indian Caste_
(_Times_ Press and Messrs. Blackwood). Bishop Westcott's _Kabir and the
Kabirpanth_ (Baptist Mission Press, Cawnpore), Mr. Rajendra Lal Mitra's
_Indo-Aryans_ (Newman & Co., Calcutta), _The Jainas_ by Dr. J.G. Bühler
and Mr. J. Burgess, Dr. J.N. Bhattacharya's _Hindu Castes and Sects_
(Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta), Professor Oman's _Mystics, Ascetics
and Saints of India, Cults, Customs and Superstitions of India_,
and _Brahmans, Theists and Muslims of India_ (T. Fisher Unwin),
Mr. V.A. Smith's _Early History of India_ (Clarendon Press), the
Rev. T.P. Hughes' _Dictionary of Islam_ (W.H. Allen & Co., and Heffer &
Sons, Cambridge), Mr. L.D. Barnett's _Antiquities of India_, M. André
Chevrillon's _Romantic India_, Mr. V. Ball's _Jungle Life in India_,
Mr. W. Crooke's _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_,
and _Things Indian_, Captain Forsyth's _Highlands of Central India_
(Messrs. Chapman & Hall), Messrs. Yule and Burnell's _Hobson-Jobson_
(Mr. Crooke's edition), Professor Hopkins' _Religions of India_, the
Rev. E.M. Gordon's _Indian Folk-Tales_ (Elliot & Stock), Messrs. Sewell
and Dikshit's _Indian Calendar_, Mr. Brennand's _Hindu Astronomy_,
and the late Rev. Father P. Dehon's monograph on the Oraons in the
_Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_.
Ethnological works on the people of the Central Provinces are not
numerous; among those from which assistance has been obtained are Sir
C. Grant's _Central Provinces Gazetteer_ of 1871, Rev. Stephen Hislop's
_Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces_, Colonel
Bloomfield's _Notes on the Baigas_, Sir Charles Elliott's _Hoshangabad
Settlement Report_, Sir Reginald Craddock's _Nagpur Settlement Report_,
Colonel Ward's _Mandla Settlement Report_, Colonel Lucie Smith's
_Chanda Settlement Report_, Mr. G.W. Gayer's _Lectures on Criminal
Tribes_, Mr. C.W. Montgomerie's _Chhindwara Settlement Report_,
Mr. C.E. Low's _Balaghat District Gazetteer_, Mr. E.J. Kitts' _Berar
Census Report_ of 1881, and the _Central Provinces Census Reports_
of Mr. T. Drysdale, Sir Benjamin Robertson and Mr. J.T. Marten.
The author is indebted to Sir J.G. Frazer for his kind permission to
make quotations from _The Golden Bough_ and _Totemism and Exogamy_
(Macmillan), in which the best examples of almost all branches of
primitive custom are to be found; to Dr. Edward Westermarck for
similar permission in respect of _The History of Human Marriage_,
and _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_ (Macmillan);
to Messrs. A. & C. Black in respect of the late Professor Robertson
Smith's _Religion of the Semites_; to Messrs. Heinemann for those
from M. Salomon Reinach's _Orpheus_; and to Messrs. Hachette et
Cie and Messrs. Parker of Oxford for those from _La Cité Antique_
of M. Fustel de Coulanges. Much assistance has also been obtained
from Sir E. B. Tylor's _Early History of Mankind_ and _Primitive
Culture_, Lord Avebury's _The Origin of Civilisation_, Mr. E. Sidney
Hartland's _Primitive Paternity_, and M. Salomon Reinach's _Cultes,
Mythes et Religions_. The labours of these eminent authors have made
it possible for the student to obtain a practical knowledge of the
ethnology of the world by the perusal of a small number of books; and
if any of the ideas put forward in these volumes should ultimately be
so fortunate as to obtain acceptance, it is to the above books that I
am principally indebted for having been able to formulate them. Other
works from which help has been obtained are M. Emile Senart's _Les
Castes dans I'Inde_, Professor W. E. Hearn's _The Aryan Household_,
and Dr. A.H. Keane's _The World's Peoples_. Sir George Grierson's great
work, _The Linguistic Survey of India_, has now given an accurate
classification of the non-Aryan tribes according to their languages
and has further thrown a considerable degree of light on the vexed
question of their origin. I have received from Mr. W. Crooke of the
Indian Civil Service (retired) much kind help and advice during the
final stages of the preparation of this work. As will be seen from the
articles, resort has constantly been made to his _Tribes and Castes_
for filling up gaps in the local information.
Rai Bahadur Hira Lal was my assistant for several years in the
taking of the census of 1901 and the preparation of the Central
Provinces District Gazetteers; he has always given the most loyal and
unselfish aid, has personally collected a large part of the original
information contained in the book, and spent much time in collating
the results. The association of his name in the authorship is no
more than his due, though except where this has been specifically
mentioned, he is not responsible for the theories and deductions
from the facts obtained. Mr. Pyare Lal Misra, barrister, Chhindwara,
was my ethnographic clerk for some years, and he and Munshi Kanhya
Lal, late of the Educational Department, and Mr. Aduram Chandhri,
Tahsildar, gave much assistance in the inquiries on different
castes. Among others who have helped in the work, Rai Bahadur
Panda Baijnath, Diwan of the Patna and Bastar States, should be
mentioned first, and Babu Kali Prasanna Mukerji, pleader, Saugor,
Mr. Gopal Datta Joshi, District Judge, Saugor, Mr. Jeorakhan Lal,
Deputy-Inspector of Schools, and Mr. Gokul Prasad, Tahsildar, may be
selected from the large number whose names are given in the footnotes
to the articles. Among European officers whose assistance should be
acknowledged are Messrs. C.E. Low, C.W. Montgomerie, A.B. Napier,
A.E. Nelson, A.K. Smith, R.H. Crosthwaite and H.F. Hallifax, of
the Civil Service; Lt.-Col. W.D. Sutherland, I.M.S., Surgeon-Major
Mitchell of Bastar, and Mr. D. Chisholm.
Some photographs have been kindly contributed by Mrs. Ashbrooke Crump,
Mrs. Mangabai Kelkar, Mr. G.L. Corbett, C.S., Mr. R.L. Johnston,
A.D.S.P., Mr. J.H. Searle, C.S., Mr. Strachey, Mr. H.E. Bartlett,
Professor L. Scherman of Munich, and the Diwan of Raigarh State. Bishop
Westcott kindly gave the photograph of Kabir, which appears in his
own book.
Finally I have to express my gratitude to the Chief Commissioner,
Sir Benjamin Robertson, for the liberal allotment made by the
Administration for the publication of the work; and to the publishers,
Messrs. Macmillan & Co., and the printers, Messrs. R. & R. Clark, for
their courtesy and assistance during its progress through the press.
September 1915.
CONTENTS
Part I--Volume I
Introductory Essay on Caste
Articles on the Religions and Sects of the People of the Central Provinces
Glossary of Minor Castes and Other Articles, Synonyms, Subcastes,
Titles and Names of Exogamous Septs or Clans
Subject Index