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

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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 Bahādur Hīra Lāl 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. Pyāre Lāl Misra, barrister, Chhindwāra, was my ethnographic clerk for some years, and he and Munshi Kanhya Lāl, late of the Educational Department, and Mr. Adurām Chandhri, Tahsīldār, gave much assistance in the inquiries on different castes. Among others who have helped in the work, Rai Bahādur Panda Baijnāth, Diwān of the Patna and Bastar States, should be mentioned first, and Bābu Kali Prasanna Mukerji, pleader, Saugor, Mr. Gopāl Datta Joshi, District Judge, Saugor, Mr. Jeorākhan Lāl, Deputy-Inspector of Schools, and Mr. Gokul Prasād, Tahsīldār, 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 Diwān of Raigarh State. Bishop Westcott kindly gave the photograph of Kabīr, 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.

      Pronunciation

      The plural of caste names and a few common Hindustāni words is formed by adding s in the English manner according to ordinary usage, though this is not, of course, the Hindustāni plural.

      Note.—The rupee contains 16 annas, and an anna is of the same value as a penny. A pice is a quarter of an anna, or a farthing. Rs. 1–8 signifies one rupee and eight annas. A lakh is a hundred thousand, and a krore ten million.

      Part I.

      Introductory Essay on Caste

      Introductory Essay on Caste

      1. The Central Provinces

      The territory controlled by the Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces and Berār has an area of 131,000 square miles and a population of 16,000,000 persons. Situated in the centre of the Indian Peninsula, between latitudes 17°47′ and 24°27′ north, and longitudes 76° and 84° east, it occupies about 7.3 per cent of the total area of British India. It adjoins the Central India States and the United Provinces to the north, Bombay to the west, Hyderābād State and the Madras Presidency to the south, and the Province of Bihār and Orissa to the east. The Province was constituted as a separate administrative unit in 1861 from territories taken from the Peshwa in 1818 and the Marātha State of Nāgpur, which had lapsed from failure of heirs in 1853. Berār, which for a considerable previous period had been held on a lease or assignment from the Nizām of Hyderābād, was incorporated for administrative purposes with the Central Provinces in 1903. In 1905 the bulk of the District of Sambalpur, with five Feudatory States inhabited by an Uriya-speaking population, were transferred to Bengal and afterwards to the new Province of Bihār and Orissa, while five Feudatory States of Chota Nāgpur were received from Bengal. The former territory had been for some years included in the scope of the Ethnographic Survey, and is shown coloured in the annexed map of linguistic and racial divisions.

      The main portion of the Province may be divided, from north-west to south-east, into three tracts of upland, alternating with two of plain country. In the north-west the Districts of Sangor and Damoh lie on the Vindhyan or Mālwa plateau, the southern face of which rises almost sheer from the valley of the Nerbudda. The general elevation of this plateau varies from 1500 to 2000 feet. The highest part is that immediately overhanging the Nerbudda, and the general slope is to the north, the rivers of this area being tributaries of the Jumna and Ganges. The surface of the country is undulating and broken by frequent low hills covered with a growth of poor and stunted forest. The second division consists of the long and narrow valley of the Nerbudda, walled in by the Vindhyan and Satpūra hills to the north and south, and extending for a length of about 200 miles from Jubbulpore to Handia, with an average width of twenty miles. The valley is situated to the south of the river, and is formed of deep alluvial deposits of extreme richness, excellently suited to the growth of wheat. South of the valley the Satpūra range or third division stretches across the Province, from Amarkantak in the east (the sacred source of the Nerbudda) to Asīrgarh in the Nimār District in the west, where its two parallel ridges bound the narrow valley of the Tapti river. The greater part consists of an elevated plateau, in some parts merely a rugged mass of hills hurled together by volcanic action, in others a succession of bare stony ridges and narrow fertile valleys, in which the soil has been deposited by drainage. The general elevation of the plateau is 2000 feet, but several of the peaks rise to 3500, and a few to more than 4000 feet. The Satpūras form the most important watershed of the Province, and in addition to the Nerbudda and Tapti, the Wardha and Wainganga rivers rise in these hills. To the east a belt of hill country continues from the Satpūras to the wild and rugged highlands of the Chota Nāgpur plateau, on which are situated the five States recently annexed to the Province. Extending along the southern and eastern faces of the Satpūra range lies the fourth geographical division, to the west the plain of Berār and Nāgpur, watered by the Purna, Wardha and Wainganga rivers, and further east the Chhattīsgarh plain, which forms the upper basin of the Mahānadi. The Berār and Nāgpur plain contains towards the west the shallow black soil in which autumn crops, like cotton and the large millet juāri, which do not require excessive moisture, can be successfully cultivated. This area is the great cotton-growing tract of the Province, and at present the most wealthy. The valleys of the Wainganga and Mahānadi further east receive a heavier rainfall and are mainly cropped with rice. Many small irrigation tanks for rice have been built by the people themselves, and large tank and canal works are now being undertaken by Government to protect the tract from the uncertainty of the rainfall. South of the plain lies another expanse of hill and plateau comprised in the zarmīndāri estates of Chānda and the Chhattīsgarh Division and the Bastar and Kanker Feudatory States. This vast area, covering about 24,000 square

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