Читать книгу The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1 - Robert Vane Russell - Страница 43

The fifth or lowest group in the scheme of precedence is that of the impure castes who cannot be touched. If a high-caste Hindu touches one of them he should bathe and have his clothes washed. These castes are not usually allowed to live inside a Hindu village, but have a hamlet to themselves adjoining it. The village barber will not shave them, nor the washerman wash their clothes. They usually have a separate well assigned to them from which to draw water, and if the village has only one well, one side of it is allotted to them and the Hindus take water from the other side. Formerly they were subjected to more humiliating restrictions. In Bombay a Mahār might not spit on the ground lest a Hindu should be polluted by touching it with his foot, but had to hang an earthen pot round his neck to hold his spittle. He was made to drag a thorny branch with him to brush out his footsteps, and when a Brāhman came by had to lie at a distance on his face lest his shadow might fall on the Brāhman.77 Even if the shadow of a Mahār or Māng fell on a Brāhman he was polluted and dare not taste food and water until he had bathed and washed the impurity away. In Madras a Paraiyān or Pariah pollutes a high-caste Hindu by approaching within a distance of 64 feet of him.78 The debased and servile position of the impure castes corresponds to that which, as already seen, attached to the Sūdras of the classical period. The castes usually regarded as impure are the tanners, bamboo-workers, sweepers, hunters and fowlers, gipsies and vagrants, village musicians and village weavers. These castes, the Chamārs, Basors, Mahārs, Koris, Gāndas and others are usually also employed as agricultural and casual labourers. Formerly, as already seen, they were not allowed to hold land. There is no reason to doubt that the status of impurity, like that of the Sūdra, was originally the mark of a subjugated and inferior race, and was practically equivalent to slavery. This was the position of the indigenous Indians who were subjugated by the Aryan invaders and remained in the country occupied by them. Though they were of different races, and the distinction was marked and brought home to themselves by the contrast in the colour of their skins, it seems probable that the real basis for their antagonism was not social so much as religious. The Indians were hated and despised by the immigrants as the worshippers of a hostile god. They could not join in the sacrifices by which the Aryans held communion with their gods, and the sacrifice itself could not even be held, in theory at least, except in those parts of India which were thoroughly subdued and held to have become the dwelling-place of the Aryan gods. The proper course prescribed by religion towards the indigenous residents was to exterminate them, as the Israelites should have exterminated the inhabitants of Canaan. But as this could not be done, because their numbers were too great or the conquerors not sufficiently ruthless, they were reduced to the servile condition of impurity and made the serfs of their masters like the Amalekites and the plebeians and helots.

If the whole of India had been thoroughly subjugated and settled like the Punjab and Hindustān, it may be supposed that the same status of impurity would have been imposed upon all the indigenous races; but this was very far from being the case. In central and southern India the Aryans or subsequent immigrants from Central Asia came at first at any rate only in small parties, and though they may have established territorial states, did not regularly occupy the land nor reduce the indigenous population to a condition of servitude. Thus large bodies of these must have retained a free position, and on their acceptance of the new religion and the development of the caste system, became enrolled in it with a caste status on the basis of their occupation. Their leaders were sometimes admitted to rank as Kshatriyas or Rājpūts, as has been stated.

Subsequently, as the racial distinction disappeared, the impure status came to attach to certain despised occupations and to customs abhorrent to Hinduism, such as that of eating beef. But, as already seen, the tribes which have continued to live apart from the Hindus are not usually regarded as impure, though they may eat beef and even skin animals. The Dhīmars, who keep pigs, still have a higher status than the impure castes because they are employed as water-bearers and household servants. It is at least doubtful whether at the time when the stigma of impurity was first attached to the Sūdras the Hindus themselves did not sacrifice cows and eat beef.79 The castes noted below are usually regarded as impure in the Central Provinces.

The Dhobi (washerman) and Kumhār (potter) are sometimes included among the impure castes, but, as already noted, their status is higher than that of the castes in this list.

Audhelia: Labouring caste of mixed descent who keep pigs.

Balāhi: Weavers and village messengers and watchmen.

Basor: Bamboo basket-makers and village musicians.

Chamār: Tanners and labourers.

Gānda: Weavers and village musicians.

Ghasia: Grass-cutters, labourers and sweepers.

Kaikāri: Vagrant basket-makers.

Kanjar, Beria, Sānsia: Gipsies and thieves.

Katia: Cotton-spinners.

Kori: Weavers and labourers.

Mādgi: Telugu tanners and hide-curriers.

Mahār: Weavers and labourers.

Māla: Telugu weavers and labourers.

Māng: Broom- and mat-makers and village musicians. They also castrate cattle.

Mehtar: Sweepers and scavengers.

Certain occupations, those of skinning cattle and curing hides, weaving the coarse country cloth worn by the villagers, making baskets from the rind of the bamboo, playing on drums and tom-toms, and scavenging generally are relegated to the lowest and impure castes. The hides of domestic animals are exceedingly impure; a Hindu is defiled even by touching their dead bodies and far more so by removing the skins. Drums and tom-toms made from the hides of animals are also impure. But in the case of weaving and basket-making the calling itself entails no defilement, and it would appear simply that they were despised by the cultivators, and as a considerable number of workers were required to satisfy the demand for baskets and cloth, were adopted by the servile and labouring castes. Basket- and mat-making are callings naturally suited to the primitive tribes who would obtain the bamboos from the forests, but weaving would not be associated with them unless cloth was first woven of tree-cotton. The weavers of the finer cotton and silk cloths, who live in towns, rank much higher than the village weavers, as in the case of the Koshtis and Tāntis, the latter of whom made the famous fine cotton cloth, known as abrawān, or ‘running water,’ which was supplied to the imperial Zenāna at Delhi. On one occasion a daughter of Aurāngzeb was reproached on entering the room for her immodest attire and excused herself by the plea that she had on seven folds of cloth over her body.80 In Bengal Brāhmans will take water from Tāntis, and it seems clear that their higher status is a consequence of the lucrative and important nature of their occupation.

The Katias are a caste of cotton-spinners, the name being derived from kātna, to cut or spin. But hand-spinning is now practically an extinct industry and the Katias have taken to weaving or ordinary manual labour for a subsistence. The Kanjars and Berias are the gipsy castes of India. They are accustomed to wander about carrying their grass-matting huts with them. Many of them live by petty thieving and cheating. Their women practise palmistry and retail charms for the cure of sickness and for exorcising evil spirits, and love-philtres. They do cupping and tattooing and also make reed mats, cane baskets, palm-leaf mats and fans, ropes from grass- and tree-fibre, brushes for the cotton-loom, string-net purses and balls, and so on; and the women commonly dance and act as prostitutes. There is good reason for thinking that the Kanjars are the parents of the European gipsies, while the Thugs who formerly infested the high-roads of India, murdering solitary travellers and small parties by strangulation, may also have been largely derived from this caste.81