===============+===========
District. | Number.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~
Muzaffarnagar | 1
Agra | 17
Farrukhâbâd | 1
Mainpuri | 5
Etâwah | 1
Etah | 37
Morâdâbâd | 5
Jhânsi | 109
Tarâi | 14
|
Total | 190
|
Males | 117
Females | 73
===============+===========
Bhoksa, Bhuksa. [57]—A tribe akin to the Thârus who are found in the
Tarâi and Bhâbar from Pilibhît District on the East to Chândpur on the
Ganges on the West. There are a few scattered colonies in Dehra Dûn.
There are three main sections of them, the Pûrabi or “Eastern” which
lies east of the Râmganga and as far west as the Gola or Sârda, where
the Thârus begin; the Pachhami or “Western” which inhabits the Pâtli
Dûn and Bijnor between the Râmganga and the Ganges; and a section
reaching still further west from the Ganges to the Jumna. Between the
Eastern and Western sections there is no friendly intercourse; each
shuns the other, and the usual fictions are repeated about eating frogs
and lizards. [58]
[Appearance.] 2. Dr. Stewart thus describes them in Bijnor. [59]—“The
members of the tribe are of short stature and very sparse in habit, in
both respects somewhat exceeding the ordinary Hindu peasant of the
District, from whom, however, they do not differ much in general build
or in complexion. The eyes are small; the opening of the eye lids being
narrow, linear and horizontal (the inner angle not inclining downwards
so far as observed); the face is very broad across the cheek bones, and
the nose is depressed, thus increasing the general flatness of the
face: the jaw is prognathous and the lower lip thick and the moustache
and beard are very scanty.” Some of these peculiarities are more marked
in some individuals than in others, but one Bhoksa will always
recognise another, though a Kumâuni says he only recognises them when
they speak. The features of the women are similar to those of the men.
[Traditions of origin.] 3. Some of them claim to be Panwâr Râjputs, and
“assert that their chief Udayjît was driven from house and home in a
quarrel that he had with his brother Jagatdeo, the Râja of Dhâranagar,
and came to dwell with a few followers at Banbasa on the Sârda. Udayjît
had not been there long when his aid was solicited by the Râja of
Kumâun, whose territories required defence against some of the
neighbouring powers. Success attended the efforts of the Panwâr, and
the gratitude of the Râja induced him to offer his defenders an asylum
in his territories. Upon this they are represented to have left Banbasa
and to have taken up their residence in their present abodes.” [60] But
their traditions are very vague; some say that they came from the
Dakkhin; others, from Delhi; others, that they were expelled from the
Dakkhin by the Marhattas. The Mahra or Dehra Dûn branch say that they
came into the District from beyond the Ganges at the invitation of Râja
Sukh Dâs Sâh of Tehri, who used them as guides through the jungles on
his shooting expeditions. They fix their emigration into the Dûn at
some five generations from the present day.
[Tribal organisation.] 4. The last Census returns give the septs of the
Bhoksas, as Jâdubansi, Panwâr, Partuja, Râjbansi, and Tunwar. Sir H. M.
Elliot describes them as having fifteen septs (gotra), of which twelve
are of superior and three of inferior rank. The superior, according to
his list, are Bargûjar, Tabâri, Barhaniya, Jalwar, Adhoi, Dugugiya,
Râthaur, Negauriya, Jalâl, Upâdhya, Chauhân, Dunwariya. The three
inferior are the Dîmar-Râthaur (descended from a Teli woman), Dhangra
(from a hill woman), and Goli from a woman of the barber caste. “The
names of these tribes indicate considerable mixture with other classes,
both Râjput and Brâhman. Bhoksas are prohibited marrying in their own
gotra; but may select any other gotra they choose. Those who reside in
Kilpuri and Sabna are said occasionally to intermarry with the Thârus.
The Bhâts of the Bhoksas, who are descended from a follower of Udayjît,
reside still at Banbasa, and pay occasional visits to their
constituents. The priests (purohit) of the Bhoksas are Kanaujiya
Brâhmans, who are also descended from one of the followers of Udayjît.”
[The Mahra Bhoksas.] 5. The meaning of the word Mahra is not certain.
The same title is applied to Kahârs when it means “a confidential
person who enters the inner apartments” (Sanskrit mahilla, “a woman”).
This name is applied only to the Dehra Dûn section, and fresh
immigrants are known as Bhoksa. Marriage in a man’s gotra and in the
family of the maternal uncle for two generations is prohibited. They
may marry as many wives as they please, but two is usually the limit.
If a girl, prior to marriage, is detected in an intrigue with a man of
her own tribe, her parents have to pay a fine, which generally amounts
to five rupees, to the tribal council, and then she is restored and
allowed to marry in the tribe; but if her lover be a man of lower caste
than herself she is permanently excommunicated. If her lover be a man
of higher caste than herself the offence is condoned on payment of a
fine of ten rupees. Boys are generally married at the age of twelve. No
money is paid by either side. If the marriage be subsequently annulled
and the girl marries again, her second husband has to refund the
expenses of the first marriage. The only valid grounds for annulling a
marriage are infidelity on the part of the wife or the impotence of the
husband. If either leave the other for any reason other than the above
they will be fined by the council. When a man divorces his wife all he
does is to turn her out of his house and inform the council. Widows can
marry again by the form known as karâo. Children, the fruit of such
union, are regarded as legitimate, and inherit on the same footing as
the offspring of a regular marriage. It is asserted that the widow may
marry the elder as well as the younger brother of her late husband; but
this is so much opposed to the usual custom regulating such cases that
it must be received with caution. When the widow marries outside the
family of her late husband the guardianship of the children of the
first marriage passes to her husband’s brothers. There is no trace of
the fiction by which the children of the second marriage are attributed
to the late husband.
6. Of the tribe in the Dûn Mr. Baillie writes [61]:—“The Mahras are the
aboriginal inhabitants and occupy all the unhealthy villages in the
Eastern Dûn, where no one else can live. These are also Râjputs, and
are closely allied to the Bhoksas of the Rohilkhand Tarâi, and Thârus
of the Oudh Tarâi. They are clearly all one and the same race. The
Mahras have few traditions, except that their ancestors were Râjputs.
They present many points of resemblance to the Bhoksas, though neither
will acknowledge any connection with the other. They are of settled
habits, dwellers in swamps and cultivators of rice, and are proof
against malaria. They do not admit outsiders into the caste. They are
timid and averse to intercourse with strangers. They generally marry on
attaining puberty. They are in their habits and customs Hindus of the
ordinary low caste type, and Gaur Brâhmans are employed by them as
priests for marriage and funeral ceremonies. Remarriage of the widows
is permitted. The widow is not obliged to marry her husband’s elder or
younger brother. They eat pork and fowls, and drink spirits like most
of the dwellers in the Tarâi swamps. Some of them are hunters, and
catch game, and others are good fishermen.” The traditions which point
to a Râjput origin are, of course, as baseless as those of the Thârus
and the allied races.
[Mahra Bhoksas—Birth ceremonies.] 7. There is no ceremony during
pregnancy. The caste supplies midwives to the higher castes; so they
attend each other at their confinements. On the sixth day is the
worship of Bihâi, who causes children to laugh or cry in their sleep. A
ball of cowdung is made and wrapped up in a cloth. The midwife brings
this ball to the mother and she worships it. On that day the entire
house is plastered, and a dish of curry and rice is made and
distributed among the clansmen and friends. The next day the mother
gets some Ganges water from a Brâhman, and, mixing it with ordinary
water, takes a bath. This is the only purification. After a month the
shaving (mûndan) is performed, and on this occasion the clansmen are
fed. There is no adoption ceremony. When a man marries a widow and has
no issue it is very common for him to adopt one of his stepsons.
[Mahra Bhoksas—Marriage.] 8. The betrothal is done in the usual way. At
the marriage a shed (mânro) is erected in the courtyard, and beneath it
the nine planets are worshipped. After this the sacred fire is lighted,
and the pair walk five times round it.
[Mahra Bhoksas—Disposal of the dead.] 9. The dead are cremated, if
possible, at the Ganges, and in any case the ashes are deposited in the
sacred river. The corpse is shrouded in a piece of white cloth, five
yards long, to which a yard of red cloth is attached. There is no
ceremony at the cremation, but thirteen days after they give some
grain, cloth, and vessels to a Brâhman, and this purifies them. On
every day up to the thirteenth the mourners give a cake to the cow
before they eat themselves. Every year, in the month of Kuâr, they feed
the relatives of their daughters in order to propitiate the ghosts of
the dead—possibly a survival of the matriarchate.
[Eastern Bhoksas—Manners and customs.] 10. The Eastern section are very
closely connected with the Thârus. “Both tribes,” says Mr. E. Colvin,
[62] “are superstitious, and, as a rule, truthful, much given to
intoxicating drink and not very chaste; both more or less migratory,
only continuing to cultivate the land until it is exhausted, and then
moving on to fresh grounds; both utterly reckless with water with which
they inundate their fields. They bear a good moral character; are
inoffensive and peaceable, as well as intensely ignorant and indolent.
They have no arts and manufactures, and live on the chase and a scanty
cultivation. They are particularly fond of wild pig, and this may be
one of the reasons why they change the site of their villages every two
or three years. In some places they collect the wild jungle produce,
but in no systematic way. They also engage in gold washing, extracting
gold dust to the value of a few hundred rupees a year from the
auriferous sands of the Sona Nadi. They are slowly but surely dying
out, and now number only a few thousands.” Mr. Colvin says that they
are less intelligent than the Thârus. “To this day neither the Bhoksas
nor the Thârus build even earthen walls for their houses, which are
made of posts driven into the ground with beams resting upon them. They
employ hill or plainsmen as blacksmiths; all which tends to prove that
they never possessed knowledge sufficient to admit of their erecting
the buildings or sinking the masonry wells, ruins of which still exist
in the Tarâi.” Of their villages in Bijnor Dr. Stewart says:—“All are
built on the same plan of one straight street, generally of
considerable width (in some cases as much as 40 or 50 feet) and kept
very clean—in both respects differing remarkably from the villages of
the plains. The huts are placed end to end, with intervals after every
group of three or four, and the walls are for the most part built of
wattle and dab, but sometimes of thatch (chhappar), of which latter the
roofs are also constructed. The houses are windowless, but each has a
door in front and another behind, the latter affording access to the
shed for cattle, etc. The doorways and roofs are very low, and the
floors of beaten earth are considerably raised above the general level
of the grounds. Those Western Bhoksas do not at any time live in houses
built on poles, as is stated to be the case with those opposite
Kumâun.”
[Eastern Bhoksas—Religion.] 11. This division of the Bhoksas has been
so far Hinduised that some of them employ Gaur Brâhmans in their
marriage and funeral ceremonies. Some are Sikhs, and the wife follows
the religion (path) of her husband, and the children that of their
father. One of the Tarâi Parganas is called Nânakmatha, after the great
Sikh Guru, and there is a Sikh shrine there as well as at Dehra and
Srinagar. But they have their own indigenous medicine men (padhân).
They pay special devotion to the death goddess known as Bhawâni or
Devi, whose functions are the same as those of the Thâru goddess,
Kâlika. They have also two local saints, Sarwar Lakhi and Kâlu Sayyid,
of whom Dr. Stewart could learn nothing. Sarwar Lakhi is evidently the
famous Sakhi Sarwar Sultân, also known as Lakhdâta or the giver of
lakhs. His real name was Sayyid Ahmad, and he flourished about the
middle of the twelfth century. His principal shrine is at Nagaha, in
the Dehra Ghâzi Khân District. He is said to have been a disciple of
Bâba Nânak: he is the patron of athletes, and especially of wrestling.
[63] Kâlu Sayyid may have some connection with Kâli Sinh, the Panjâb
snake godling. [64] But he is more probably identical with the deity
known to the Baheliyas as Kâlu Bîr, to the Banjâras as Kâlu Deo, and to
the Kahârs, as Kâlu Kahâr. One story is that he was born of a Kahâr
girl, who by magical charms compelled King Solomon to marry her, with
the result that she bore a son, Kâlu Bâba, who is worshipped
extensively by Kahârs, Chamârs, Sainis, Gadariyas, and other low castes
in the form of a fetish stick decorated with peacocks’ feathers. The
last Census shows 266,191 votaries of this godling. Sarwar Lakhi has a
shrine at the entrance to the main pass through the Siwâlik hills into
the Pâtli Dûn, and all wayfarers, as they pass, of whatever race,
tribe, or creed, make offerings to his shrine.
[Eastern Bhoksas—Witchcraft.] 11. Like many isolated jungle tribes,
they have acquired a reputation for sorcery and witchcraft. In fact,
Bhogsa or Bhoksa, is the name for a sorcerer in Garhwâl. “Some are even
said to be able to assume the form of a wild animal, and thus
accomplish the destruction of an enemy. Sudarsan Sâh rid Garhwâ of
sorcerers in the following manner:—He called all the Bhogsas together
under pretence of needing their assistance in some ceremony, and
promised them all sorts of rewards should he succeed, and so induced
them to come themselves and bring all their books with them. When all
were assembled that had any pretensions to power as sorcerers, he
caused them to be bound hand and foot, and thrown with their books and
implements into the river.” [65]