Kambla Buffalo Race.Kambla Buffalo Race.The Bants are fond of out-door sports, football and buffalo-racing being amongst their favourite amusements. But the most popular of all is cock-fighting. Every Bant, who is not a Jain, takes an interest in this sport, and large assemblages of cocks are found at every fair and festival throughout South Canara. “The outsider,” it has been said,35“cannot fail to be struck with the tremendous excitement that attends a village fair in South Canara. Large numbers of cocks are displayed for sale, and groups of excited people may be seen huddled together, bending down with intense eagerness to watch every detail in the progress of a combat between two celebrated village game-cocks.” Cock fights on an elaborate scale take place on the day after theDīpāvali, Sankaranthi or Vinayakachathurthi, and Gokalāshtami festivals, outside the village boundary. At Hiriadaka, in October, 1907, more than a hundred birds were tethered by the leg to the scrub jungle composed of the evergreen shrubIxora coccinea, or carried in the arms of their owners or youngsters. Only males, from the town and surrounding villages, were witnesses of the spectacle. The tethered birds, if within range of each other, excited by the constant crowing and turmoil, indulged in an impromptu fight. Grains of rice and water were poured into the mouths and over the heads of the birds before the fight, and after each round. The birds were armed with cunningly devised steel spurs, constituting a battery of variously curved and sinuous weapons. It is believed that the Bhūta (demon) is appeased, if the blood from the wounds drops on the ground. The men, whose duty it is to separate the birds at the end of a round, sometimes receive nasty wounds from the spurs. The tail feathers of a wounded bird are lifted up, and a palm leaf fan or towel is waved to and fro over the cloacal orifice to revive it. The owner of a victorious bird becomes the possessor of the vanquished bird, dead or alive. At an exhibition of the products of South Canara, during a recent visit of the Governor of Madras to Mangalore, a collection of spurs was exhibited in the class “household implements.”Kambla Racing Buffaloes.Kambla Racing Buffaloes.For the following note on buffalo races, I am indebted to Mr. H. O. D. Harding. “This is a sport that has grown up among a race of cultivators of wet land. It is, I believe, peculiar to South Canara, where all the cultivation worth mentioning is wet. The Bants and Jains, and other landowners of position, own and run buffaloes, and the Billava, or toddy drawer, has also entered the racing world. Every rich Bant keeps hiskambla field consecrated to buffalo-racing, and his pair of racing buffaloes, costing from Rs. 150 to Rs. 500, are splendid animals; and, except for an occasional plough-drawing at the beginning of the cultivation season, are used for no purpose all the year, except racing. The racing is for no prize or stakes, and there is no betting, starter, judge, or winning post. Each pair of buffaloes runs the course alone, and is judged by the assembled crowd for pace and style, and, most important of all, the height and breadth of the splash which they make. Most people know the common levelling plank used by the ryots (cultivators) all over India to level the wet field after ploughing. It is a plank some 4 or 5 feet long by 1 or 1½ feet broad, and on it the driver stands to give it weight, and the buffaloes pull it over the mud of a flooded rice-field. This is the prototype of the buffalo-racing car, and any day during the cultivating season in the Tulu country one may see two boys racing for the love of the sport, as they drive their levelling boards. From this the racing car has been specialised, and, if a work of art for its own purpose, is not a car on which any one could or would wish to travel far. The leveller of utility is cut down to a plank about 1½ by 1 foot, sometimes handsomely carved, on which is fixed a gaily decorated wooden stool about 6 inches high and 10 inches across each way, hollowed out on the top, and just big enough to afford good standing for one foot. In the plank, on each side, are holes to let the mud and water through. The plank is fixed to a pole, which is tied to the buffalo’s yoke. The buffaloes are decorated with coloured jhūls and marvellous head-pieces of brass and silver (sometimes bearing the emblems of the sun and moon), and ropes which make a sort of bridle. The driver, stripping himself to the necessary minimum ofgarments, mounts, while some of his friends cling, like ants struggling round a dead beetle, to the buffaloes. When he is fairly up, they let go, and the animals start. The course is a wet rice-field, about 150 yards long, full of mud and water. All round are hundreds, or perhaps thousands of people, including Pariahs who dance in groups in the mud, play stick-game, and beat drums. In front of the galloping buffaloes the water is clear and still, throwing a powerful reflection of them as they gallop down the course, raising a perfect tornado of mud and water. The driver stands with one foot on the stool, and one on the pole of the car. He holds a whip aloft in one hand, and one of the buffaloes’ tails in the other. He drives without reins, with nothing but a waggling tail to hold on to and steer by. Opening his mouth wide, he shouts for all he is worth, while, to all appearances, a deluge of mud and water goes down his throat. So he comes down the course, the plank on which he stands throwing up a sort of Prince of Wales’ feathers of mud and water round him. The stance on the plank is no easy matter, and not a few men come to grief, but it is soft falling in the slush. Marks are given for pace, style, sticking to the plank, and throwing up the biggest and widest splash. Sometimes a kind of gallows, perhaps twenty feet high, is erected on the course, and there is a round of applause if the splash reaches up to or above it. Sometimes the buffaloes bolt, scatter the crowd, and get away into the young rice. At the end of the course, the driver jumps off with a parting smack at his buffaloes, which run up the slope of the field, and stop of themselves in what may be called the paddock. At a big meeting perhaps a hundred pairs, brought from all over the Tulu country, will compete, and the big men always send theirbuffaloes to the races headed by the local band. The roads are alive with horns and tom-toms for several days. The proceedings commence with a procession, which is not infrequently headed by a couple of painted dolls in an attitude suggestive of that reproductiveness, which the races really give thanks for. They are a sort of harvest festival, before the second or sugge crop is sown, and are usually held in October and November. Devils must be propitiated, and the meeting opens with a devil dance. A painted, grass-crowned devil dancer, riding a hobby-horse, proceeds with music round the kambla field. Then comes the buffalo procession, and the races commence. At a big meeting near Mangalore, the two leading devil dancers were dressed up in masks, and coat and trousers of blue mission cloth, and one had the genitalia represented by a long piece of blue cloth tipped with red, and enormous testes. Buffaloes, young and old, trained and untrained, compete, some without the plank attached to them, and others with planks but without drivers. Accidents sometimes happen, owing to the animals breaking away among the crowd. On one occasion, a man who was in front of a pair of buffaloes which were just about to start failed to jump clear of them. Catching hold of the yoke, he hung on to it by his hands, and was carried right down the course, and was landed safely at the other end. If he had dropped, he would have fallen among four pairs of hoofs, not to mention the planks, and would probably have been brained. It is often a case of owners up, and the sons and nephews of big Bants, worth perhaps Rs. 10,000 a year, drive the teams.”To the above account, I may add a few notes made at a buffalo race-meeting near Udipi, at which I was present. Each group of buffaloes, as they went up the track tothe starting-point, was preceded by the Koraga band playing on drum, fife and cymbals, Holeyas armed with staves and dancing, and a man holding a flag (nishāni). Sometimes, in addition to the flag, there is a pakkē or spear on the end of a bamboo covered with strips of cloth, or a makara torana,i.e., festooned cloths between two bamboos. The two last are permitted only if the buffaloes belong to a Bant or Brāhman, not if they are the property of a Billava. At the end of the races, the Ballāla chief, in whose field they had taken place, retired in procession, headed by a man carrying his banner, which, during the races, had been floating on the top of a long bamboo pole at the far end of the track. He was followed by the Koraga band, and the Holeyas attached to him, armed with clubs, and dancing a step dance amid discordant noises. Two Nalkes (devil-dancers), dressed up in their professional garb, and a torch-bearer also joined in the procession, in the rear of which came the Ballāla beneath a decorated umbrella. In every village there are rākshasas (demons), called Kambla-asura, who preside over the fields. The races are held to propitiate them, and, if they are omitted, it is believed that there will be a failure of the crop. According to some, Kambla-asura is the brother of Mahēshasura, the buffalo-headed giant, from whom Mysore receives its name. The Koragas sit up through the night before the Kambla day, performing a ceremony called panikkuluni, or sitting under the dew. They sing songs to the accompaniment of the band, about their devil Nīcha, and offer toddy and a rice-pudding boiled in a large earthen pot, which is broken so that the pudding remains as a solid mass. This pudding is called kandēl addē, or pot pudding. On the morning of the races, the Holeyas scatter manure over the field, andplough it. On the following day, the seedlings are planted, without, as in ordinary cases, any ploughing. To propitiate various devils, the days following the races are devoted to cock-fighting. The Kamblas, in different places, have various names derived from the village deity, the chief village devil, or the village itself,e.g., Janardhana Dēvara, Daivala, or Udiyavar. The young men, who have the management of the buffaloes, are called Bannangayi Gurikara (half-ripe cocoanut masters) as they have the right of taking tender cocoanuts, as well as beaten rice to give them physical strength, without the special permission of their landlord. At the village of Vandar, the races take place in a dry field, which has been ploughed, and beaten to break up the clods of earth. For this reason they are called podi (powder) Kambla.A pair of buffaloes, belonging to the field in which the races take place, should enter the field first, and a breach of this observance leads to discussion and quarrels. On one occasion, a dispute arose between two Bants in connection with the question of precedence. One of them brought his own pair of buffaloes, and the other a borrowed pair. If the latter had brought his own animals, he would have had precedence over the former. But, as his animals were borrowed, precedence was given to the man who brought his own buffaloes. This led to a dispute, and the races were not commenced until the delicate point at issue was decided. In some places, a long pole, called pūkāre, decorated with flags, flowers, and festoons of leaves, is set up in the Kambla field, sometimes on a platform. Billavas are in charge of this pole, which is worshipped, throughout the races, and others may not touch it.Pūkāre Post at Kambla Buffalo Races.Pūkāre Post at Kambla Buffalo Races.Fines inflicted by the Bant caste council are, I am informed, spent in the celebration of a temple festival.In former days, those found guilty by the council were beaten with tamarind switches, made to stand exposed to the sun, or big red ants were thrown over their bodies. Sometimes, to establish the innocence of an accused person, he had to take a piece of red-hot iron (axe, etc.) in his hand, and give it to his accuser.At a puberty ceremony among some Bants the girl sits in the courtyard of her house on five unhusked cocoanuts covered with the bamboo cylinder which is used for storing paddy. Women place four pots filled with water, and containing betel leaves and nuts, round the girl, and empty the contents over her head. She is then secluded in an outhouse. The women are entertained with a feast, which must include fowl and fish curry. The cocoanuts are given to a washerwoman. On the fourth day, the girl is bathed, and received back at the house. Beaten rice, and rice flour mixed with jaggery (crude sugar) are served out to those assembled. The girl is kept gōsha (secluded) for a time, and fed up with generous diet.Under the aliya santāna system of inheritance, the High Court has ruled that there is no marriage within the meaning of the Penal Code. But, though divorce and remarriage are permitted to women, there are formal rules and ceremonies observed in connection with them, and amongst the well-to-do classes divorce is not looked upon as respectable, and is not frequent. The fictitious marriage prevailing amongst the Nāyars is unknown among the Bants, and a wife also usually leaves the family house, and resides at her husband’s, unless she occupies so senior a position in her own family as to make it desirable that she should live on the family estate.The Bants are divided into a number of balis (exogamous septs), which are traced in the female line,i.e., a boy belongs to his mother’s, not to his father’s bali. Children belonging to the same bali cannot marry, and the prohibition extends to certain allied (koodu) balis. Moreover, a man cannot marry his father’s brother’s daughter, though she belongs to a different bali. In a memorandum by Mr. M. Mundappa Bangera,36it is stated that “bali in aliya santāna families corresponds to gōtra of the Brāhmins governed by Hindu law, but differs in that it is derived from the mother’s side, whereas gōtra is always derived from the father’s side. A marriage between a boy and girl belonging to the same bali is considered incestuous, as falling within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. It is not at all difficult to find out the bali to which a man or woman belongs, as one can scarcely be found who does not know one’s own bali by rote. And the heads of caste, who preside at every wedding party, and who are also consulted by the elders of the boy or girl before an alliance is formed, are such experts in these matters that they decide at once without reference to any books or rules whether intermarriages between persons brought before them can be lawfully performed or not.” As examples of balis among the Bants, the following may be cited:—Bellathannaya, jaggery.Bhūthiannaya, ashes.Chāliannaya, weaver.Edinnaya, hornet’s nest.Karkadabennai, scorpion.Kayerthannaya (Strychnos Nux-vomica).Kochattabannayya, or Kajjarannayya, jack tree (Artocarpus integrifolia).Koriannaya, fowl.Pathanchithannaya, green peas.Perugadannaya, bandicoot rat.Poyilethannaya, one who removes the evil eye.Puliattannaya, tiger.Rāgithannaya, rāgi (Eleusine Coracana).Infant marriage is not prohibited, but is not common, and both men and girls are usually married after they have reached maturity. There are two forms of marriage, one called kai dhāre for marriages between virgins and bachelors, the other called budu dhāre for the marriage of widows. After a match has been arranged, the formal betrothal, called ponnapāthera or nischaya tambula, takes place. The bridegroom’s relatives and friends proceed in a body on the appointed day to the bride’s house, and are there entertained at a grand dinner, to which the bride’s relatives and friends are also bidden. Subsequently the karnavans (heads) of the two families formally engage to perform the marriage, and plates of betel leaves and areca nuts are exchanged, and the betel and nuts partaken of by the two parties. The actual marriage ceremony is performed at the house of the bride or bridegroom, as may be most convenient. The proceedings commence with the bridegroom seating himself in the marriage pandal, a booth or canopy specially erected for the occasion. He is there shaved by the village barber, and then retires and bathes. This done, both he and the bride are conducted to the pandal by their relations, or sometimes by the village headman. They walk thrice round the seat, and then sit down side by side. The essential and binding part of the ceremony, called dhāre, then takes place. The right hand of the bride being placed over the right hand of the bridegroom, a silver vessel (dhāre gindi) filled with water, with a cocoanut over the mouth and the flower of the areca palm on the cocoanut, is placed on the joined hands. The parents, the managers of the two families, and the village headmen all touch the vessel, which, with the hands of the bridal pair, is moved up and down three times. In certain families the water is poured from thevessel into the united hands of the couple, and this betokens the gift of the bride. This form of gift by pouring water was formerly common, and was not confined to the gift of a bride. It still survives in the marriage ceremonies of various castes, and the name of the Bant ceremony shows that it must once have been universal among them. The bride and bridegroom then receive the congratulations of the guests, who express a hope that the happy couple may become the parents of twelve sons and twelve daughters. An empty plate, and another containing rice, are next placed before the pair, and their friends sprinkle them with rice from the one, and place a small gift, generally four annas, in the other. The bridegroom then makes a gift to the bride. This is called sirdachi, and varies in amount according to the position of the parties. This must be returned to the husband, if his wife leaves him, or if she is divorced for misconduct. The bride is then taken back in procession to her home. A few days later she is again taken to the bridegroom’s house, and must serve her husband with food. He makes another money present to her, and after that the marriage is consummated.According to another account of the marriage ceremony among some Bants, the barber shaves the bridegroom’s face, using cow’s milk instead of water, and touches the bride’s forehead with razor. The bride and bridegroom bathe, and dress up in new clothes. A plank covered with a newly-washed cloth supplied by a washerman, a tray containing raw rice, a lighted lamp, betel leaves and areca nuts, etc., are placed in the pandal. A girl carries a tray on which are placed a lighted lamp, a measure full of raw rice, and betel. She is followed by the bridegroom conducted by her brother, and the bride, led by the bridegroom’s sister. They enterthe pandal and, after going round the articles contained therein five times, sit down on the plank. An elderly woman, belonging to the family of the caste headman, brings a tray containing rice, and places it in front of the couple, over whom she sprinkles a little of the rice. The assembled men and women then place presents of money on the tray, and sprinkle rice over the couple. The right hand of the bride is held by the headman, and her uncle, and laid in that of the bridegroom. A cocoanut is placed over the mouth of a vessel, which is decorated with mango leaves and flowers of the areca palm. The headman and male relations of the bride place this vessel thrice in the hands of the bridal couple. The vessel is subsequently emptied at the foot of a cocoanut tree.The foregoing account shows that the Bant marriage is a good deal more than concubinage. It is indeed as formal a marriage as is to be found among any people in the world, and the freedom of divorce which is allowed cannot deprive it of its essential character. Widows are married with much less formality. The ceremony consists simply of joining the hands of the couple, but, strange to say, a screen is placed between them. All widows are allowed to marry again, but it is, as a rule, only the young women who actually do so. If a widow becomes pregnant, she must marry or suffer loss of caste.The Bants all burn their dead, except in the case of children under seven, and those who have died of leprosy or of epidemic disease such as cholera or small-pox. The funeral pile must consist at least partly of mango wood. On the ninth, eleventh or thirteenth day, people are fed in large numbers, but the Jains now substitute for this a distribution of cocoanuts on the third, fifth,seventh, or ninth day. Once a year—generally in October—a ceremony called agelū is performed for the propitiation of ancestors.From a detailed account of the Bant death ceremonies, I gather that the news of a death is conveyed to the caste people by a Holeya. A carpenter, accompanied by musicians, proceeds to cut down a mango tree for the funeral pyre. The body is bathed, and laid out on a plank. Clad in new clothes, it is conveyed with music to the burning-ground. A barber carries thither a pot containing fire. The corpse is set down near the pyre and divested of the new clothes, which are distributed between a barber, washerman, carpenter, a Billava and Holeya. The pyre is kindled by a Billava, and the mat on which the corpse has been lying is thrown thereon by a son or nephew of the deceased. On the third day the relations go to the burning-ground, and a barber and washerman sprinkle water over the ashes. Some days later, the caste people are invited to attend, and a barber, washerman, and carpenter build up on the spot where the corpse was burnt a lofty structure, made of bamboo and areca palm, in an odd number of tiers, and supported on an odd number of posts. It is decorated with cloths, fruits, tender cocoanuts, sugarcane, flowers, mango leaves, areca palm flowers, etc., and a fence is set up round it. The sons and other relations of the deceased carry to the burning-ground three balls of cooked rice (pinda) dyed with turmeric and tied up in a cloth, some raw rice dyed with turmeric, pieces of green plantain fruit, and pumpkin and a cocoanut. They go thrice round the structure, carrying the various articles in trays on their heads, and deposit them therein. The relations then throw a little of the coloured rice into the structure, and one of the castemen sprinkles water contained in a mango leaf over their hands. After bathing, they return home. The clothes, jewels, etc., of the deceased are laid on a cloth spread inside the house. A piece of turmeric is suspended from the ceiling by a string, and a tray containing water coloured yellow placed beneath it. Round this the females seat themselves. A cocoanut is broken, and a barber sprinkles the water thereof contained in a mango leaf over those assembled. On the following day, various kinds of food are prepared, and placed on leaves, with a piece of new cloth, within a room of the house. The cloth remains there for a year, when it is renewed. The renewal continues until another death occurs in the family.In the following table, the cephalic index of the Bants is compared with that of the Billavas and Shivalli Brāhmans:—Average.Maximum.Minimum.Brahman80.496.472Billava80.191.571Bant7891.270.8The headman among the Bants is generally called Guttinayya, meaning person of the guttu or site. Every village, or group of villages, possesses a guttu, and the Bant who occupies, or holds in possession the house or site set apart as the guttu is the Guttinayya. When this passes to another by sale or inheritance, the office of headman passes with it. It is said that, in some instances, the headmanship has in this way passed to classes other than Bants,e.g., Brāhmans and Jains. In some villages, the headman is, as among some other castes, called Gurikāra, whose appointment is hereditary.A few supplementary notes may be added on the Parivara, Nād, and Māsādika Bants. The Parivaras are confined to the southern taluks of the South Canara district. They may interdine, but may not intermarry with the other section. The rule of inheritance is makkalakattu (in the male line). Brāhman priests are engaged for the various ceremonials, so the Parivaras are more Brāhmanised than the Nād or Māsādika Bants. The Parivaras may resort to the wells used by Brāhmans, and they consequently claim superiority over the other sections. Among the Nād Bants, no marriage badge is tied on the neck of the bride. At a Parivara marriage, after the dhāre ceremony, the bridegroom ties a gold bead, called dhāre mani, on the neck of the bride. The remarriage of widows is not in vogue. In connection with the death ceremonies, a car is not, as among the Nād and Māsādika sections, set up over the mound (dhūpe). On the eleventh day, the spreading of a cloth on the mound for offerings of food must be done by Nekkāras, who wash clothes for Billavas.The Nād or Nādava and Māsādika Bants follow the aliya santāna law of succession, and intermarriage is permitted between the two sections. The names of the balis, which have already been given, are common among the Māsādikas, and do not apply to the Nāds, among whom different sept names occur,e.g., Honne, Shetti, Koudichi, etc. Elaborate death ceremonies are only performed if the deceased was old, or a respected member of the community. The corpse is generally cremated in one of the rice-fields belonging to the family. After the funeral, the male members of the family return home, and place a vessel containing water and light in a room. One or two women mustremain in this room, and the light must be kept burning until the bojja, or final death ceremonies, are over. The water in the vessel must be renewed twice daily. At the final ceremonies, a feast is given to the castemen, and in some places, the headman insists on the people of the house of mourning giving him a jewel as a pledge that the bojja will be performed on the ninth, eleventh, or thirteenth day. The headman visits the house on the previous day, and, after examination of the provisions, helps in cutting up vegetables, etc. On the bojja day, copper and silver coins, and small pieces of gold, are buried or sown in the field in which the ceremony is performed. This is called hanabiththodu. The lofty structure, called gurigi or upparige, is set up over the dhūpe or ashes heaped up into a mound, or in the field in which the body was cremated, only in the event of the deceased being a person of importance. In some places, two kinds of structure are used, one called gurigi, composed of several tiers, for males, and the other called dēlagūdu, consisting of a single tier, for females. Devil-dancers are engaged, and the commonest kōla performed by them is the eru kōla, or man and hobby-horse. In the room containing the vessel of water, four sticks are planted in the ground, and tied together. Over the sticks a cloth is placed, and the vessel of water placed beneath it. A bit of string is tied to the ceiling, and a piece of turmeric or a gold ring is attached to the end of it, and suspended so as to touch the water in the vessel. This is called nīr neralu (shadow in water), and seems to be a custom among various Tulu castes. After the bojja ceremony, all those who are under death pollution stand in two rows. A Madavali (washerman) touches them with acloth, and a Kēlasi (barber) sprinkles water over them. In this manner, they are freed from pollution.The most common title among the Bants is Chetti or Setti, but many others occur,e.g., Heggade, Nāyaka, Bangēra, Rai, Ballālaru, etc.Bārang Jhodia.—A sub-division of Poroja.Bardēshkar(people of twelve countries).—Some families among Konkani Brāhmans go by this name.Bāriki.—Bāriki is the name for village watchmen in Southern Ganjam, whose duty it further is to guide the traveller on the march from place to place. In the Bellary Manual, Bārika is given as the name for Canarese Kabbēras, who are village servants, who keep the village chāvadi (caste meeting-house) clean, look after the wants of officials halting in the village, and perform various other duties. In the Census Report, 1901, the Bārikas are said to be usually Bōyas. The Bārika of Mysore is defined by Mr. L. Rice as37“a menial among the village servants; a deputy talāri, who is employed to watch the crops from the growing crop to the granary.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Bellary district, that “in the middle of the threshold of nearly all the gateways of the ruined fortifications round the Bellary villages will be noticed a roughly cylindrical or conical stone, something like a lingam. This is the boddu-rāyi, literally the navel stone, and so the middle stone. It was planted there when the fort was built, and is affectionately regarded as being the boundary of the village site. Once a year, in May, just before the sowing season begins, a ceremony takes place in connection with it. Reverence is first made to the bullocksof the village, and in the evening they are driven through the gateway past the boddu-rāyi with tom-toms, flutes, and all kinds of music. The Bārike next does pūja (worship) to the stone, and then a string of mango leaves is tied across the gateway above it. The villagers now form sides, one party trying to drive the bullocks through the gate, and the other trying to keep them out. The greatest uproar and confusion naturally follow, and, in the midst of the turmoil, some bullock or other eventually breaks through the guardians of the gate, and gains the village. If that first bullock is a red one, the red grains on the red soils will flourish in the coming season. If he is white, white crops like cotton and white cholam will prosper. If he is red-and-white, both kinds will do well. When the rains fail, and, in any case, on the first full moon in September, rude human figures drawn on the ground with powdered charcoal may be seen at cross-roads and along big thoroughfares. They represent Jōkumāra the rain-god, and are made by the Bārikes—a class of village servants, who are usually of the Gaurimakkalu sub-division of the Kabbēras. The villagers give the artists some small remuneration, and believe that luck comes to those who pass over the figures.”Bārike.—A title of Gaudos and other Oriya castes.Barrellu(buffaloes).—An exogamous sept of Kāpu.Bāsala.—Recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as Telugu beggars and soothsayers in Vizagapatam. The word is apparently a corruption of Bāsa-vālu, a sage. The Bāsa-vālu pretend to be messengers of Indra, the chief of the Dēvatas, and prognosticate coming events.Basari(fig tree).—A gōtra of Kurni.Bāsava Golla.—A name for certain Koyis of the Godāvari district, whose grandfathers had a quarrel withsome of their neighbours, and separated from them. The name Bāsava is said to be derived from bhāsha, a language, as these Koyis speak a different language from the true Gollas.38In like manner, Bāsa Kondhs are those who speak their proper language, in contradistinction to those who speak Oriya, or Oriya mixed with Kui.Basavi.—SeeDēva-dāsi.Basiya Korono.—A sub-division of Korono.Basruvōgaru(basru, belly).—An exogamous sept of Gauda.Baththāla(rice).—An exogamous sept of Kamma.Batlu(cup).—An exogamous sept of Kuruba.Bauri.—There are found in the Madras Presidency nomad gangs of Bauris or Bāwariyas, who are described39as “one of the worst criminal tribes of India. The sphere of their operations extends throughout the length and breadth of the country. They not only commit robberies, burglaries and thefts, but also practice the art of manufacturing and passing counterfeit coin. They keep with them a small quantity of wheat and sandal seeds in a small tin or brass case, which they call Dēvakadana or God’s grain, and a tuft of peacock’s feathers, all in a bundle. They are very superstitious, and do not embark on any enterprise without first ascertaining by omens whether it will be attended with success or not. This they do by taking at random a small quantity of grains out of their Dēvakadana and counting the number of grains, the omen being considered good or bad according as the number of seeds is odd or even. For a detailed record of the history ofthis criminal class, and the methods employed in the performance of criminal acts, I would refer the reader to the accounts given by Mr. Paupa Rao40and Mr. W. Crooke.41Bāvāji.—The Bāvājis are Bairāgi or Gosāyi beggars, who travel about the country. They are known by various names,e.g., Bairāgi, Sādu, etc.Bāvuri.—The Bāvuris, or Bauris, are a low class of Oriya basket-makers, living in Ganjam, and are more familiarly known as Khodālo. They are a polluting class, living in separate quarters, and occupy a position lower than the Sāmantiyas, but higher than the Kondras, Dandāsis, and Haddis. They claim that palanquin (dhooly or dūli) bearing is their traditional occupation, and consequently call themselves Bōyi. “According to one story,” Risley writes,42“they were degraded for attempting to steal food from the banquet of the gods; another professes to trace them back to a mythical ancestor named Bāhak Rishi (the bearer of burdens), and tells how, while returning from a marriage procession, they sold the palanquin they had been hired to carry, got drunk on the proceeds, and assaulted their guru (religious preceptor), who cursed them for the sacrilege, and condemned them to rank thenceforward among the lowest castes of the community.” The Bāvuris are apparently divided into two endogamous sections, viz., Dulia and Khandi. The former regard themselves as superior to the latter, and prefer to be called Khodālo. Some of these have given up eating beef, call themselves Dāsa Khodālos, and claim descent from oneBalliga Doss, a famous Bāvuri devotee, who is said to have worked wonders, analogous to those of Nandan of the Paraiyan community. To this section the caste priests belong. At Russelkonda, a woman, when asked if she was a Bāvuri, replied that the caste is so called by others, but that its real name is Khodālo. Others, in reply to a question whether they belonged to the Khandi section, became angry, and said that the Khandis are inferior, because they eat frogs.The Bāvuris gave the name of two gōtras, saptha bhavunia and nāga, which are said to be exogamous. The former offer food to the gods on seven leaves of the white gourd melon,Benincasa cerifera(kokkara), and the latter on jak (Artocarpus integrifolia: panasa) leaves. All over the Oriya country there is a general belief that house-names or bamsams are foreign to the Oriya castes, and only possessed by the Telugus. But some genuine Oriya castes,e.g., Haddis, Dandāsis and Bhondāris, have exogamous bamsams.For every group of villages (muttah), the Bāvuris apparently have a headman called Bēhara, who is assisted by Naikos or Dolo Bēharas, or, in some places, Dondias or Porichas, who hold sway over a smaller number of villages. Each village has its own headman, called Bhollobhaya (good brother), to whose notice all irregularities are brought. These are either settled by himself, or referred to the Bēhara and Naiko. In some villages, in addition to the Bhollobhaya, there is a caste servant called Dangua or Dogara. For serious offences, a council-meeting is convened by the Bēhara, and attended by the Bhollobhayas, Naikos, and a few leading members of the community. The meeting is held in an open plain outside the village. Once in two orthree years, a council-meeting, called mondolo, is held, at which various matters are discussed, and decided. The expenses of meetings are defrayed by the inhabitants of the villages in which they take place. Among the most important matters to be decided by tribunals are adultery, eating with lower castes, the re-admission of convicts into the caste, etc. Punishment takes the form of a fine, and trial by ordeal is apparently not resorted to. A man, who is convicted of committing adultery, or eating with a member of a lower caste, is received back into the caste on payment of the fine. A woman, who has been proved guilty of such offences, is not so taken back. It is said that, when a member of a higher caste commits adultery with a Bāvuri woman, he is sometimes received into the Bāvuri caste. The Bēhara receives a small fee annually from each village or family, and also a small present of money for each marriage.Girls are married either before or after puberty. A man may marry his maternal uncle’s, but not his paternal aunt’s daughter. At an adult marriage, the festivities last for four days, whereas, at an infant marriage, they are extended over seven days. When a young man’s parents have selected a girl for him, they consult a Brāhman, and, if he decides that the marriage will be auspicious, they proceed to the girl’s home, and ask that a day be fixed for the betrothal. On the appointed day the amount of money, which is to be paid by the bridegroom-elect for jewels, etc., is fixed. One or two new cloths must be given to the girl’s grandmother, and the man’s party must announce the number of feasts they intend to give to the castemen. If the family is poor, the feasts are mentioned, but do not actually take place. The marriage ceremony is always celebrated at night. On the evening of the day prior thereto, the bride andbridegroom’s people proceed to the temple of the village goddess (Tākurāni), and, on their way home, go to seven houses of members of their own or some higher caste, and ask them to give them water, which is poured into a small vessel. This vessel is taken home, and hung over the bedi (marriage dais). The water is used by the bride and bridegroom on the following morning for bathing. On the marriage day, the bridegroom proceeds to the bride’s village, and is met on the way by her party, and escorted by his brother-in-law to the dais. The Bhollobhaya enquires whether the bride’s party have received everything as arranged, and, when he has been assured on this point, the bride is brought to the dais by her maternal uncle. She carries with her in her hands a little salt and rice; and, after throwing these over the bridegroom, she sits by his side. The grandfathers of the contracting couple, or a priest called Dhiyāni, officiate. Their palms are placed together, and the hands united by a string dyed with turmeric. The union of the hands is called hasthagonti, and is the binding portion of the ceremony. Turmeric water is poured over the hands seven times from a chank or sankha shell. Seven married women then throw over the heads of the couple a mixture ofZizyphus Jujuba(borkolipathro) leaves, rice smeared with turmeric, andCynodon Dactylon(dhūba) culms. This rite is called bhondaivaro, and is performed at all auspicious ceremonies. The fingers of the bride and bridegroom are then linked together, and they are led by the wife of the bride’s brother seven times round the bedi. The priest then proclaims that the soot can soon be wiped off the cooking-pot, but the connection brought about by the marriage is enduring, and relationship is secured for seven generations. The pair are taken indoors, and fed. Theremaining days of the marriage ceremonies are given up to feasting. The remarriage of widows is permitted. A widow is expected to marry the younger brother of her deceased husband, or, with his permission, may marry whom she likes.When a girl attains maturity, she is seated on a new mat, andZizyphus Jujubaleaves are thrown over her. This ceremony is sometimes repeated daily for six days, during which sweets, etc., are given to the girl, and women who bring presents are fed. On the seventh day, the girl is taken to a tank (pond), and bathed.The dead are either buried or burnt. The corpse is, at the funeral, borne in the hands, or on a bier, by four men. Soon after the village boundary has been crossed, the widow of the deceased throws rice over the eyes of the corpse, and also a little fire, after taking it three times round. She usually carries with her a pot and ladle, which she throws away. If an elderly woman dies, these rites are performed by her daughter-in-law. At the burial-ground, the corpse is taken seven times round the grave, and, as it is lowered into it, those present say “Oh! trees, Oh! sky, Oh! earth, we are laying him in. It is not our fault.” When the grave has been filled in, the figures of a man and woman are drawn on it, and all throw earth over it, saying “You were living with us; now you have left us. Do not trouble the people.” On their return home, the mourners sprinkle cowdung water about the house and over their feet, and toddy is partaken of. On the following day, all the old pots are thrown away, and the agnates eat rice cooked with margosa (Melia Azadirachta) leaves. Food is offered to the dead person, either at the burial-ground or in the backyard of the house. On the tenth day, the Dhiyani,as the priest is called, is sent for, and arrives with his drum (dhiyani). A small hut is erected on a tank bund (embankment), and food cooked seven times, and offered seven times on seven fragments of pots. A new cloth is spread, and on it food, fruits, a chank shell, etc., are placed, and offered to the deceased. The various articles are put into a new pot, and the son, going into the water up to his neck, throws the pot into the air, and breaks it. The celebrants of the rite then return to the house, and stand in a row in front thereof. They are there purified by means of milk smeared over their hands by the Dhiyani. On the twelfth day, food is offered on twelve leaves.The Bāvuris do not worship Jagannāthāswāmi, or other of the higher deities, but reverence their ancestors and the village goddesses or Tākurānis. Like other Oriya classes, the Bāvuris name their children on the twenty-first day. Opprobrious names are common among them,e.g., Ogādu (dirty fellow), Kangāli (wretched fellow), Haddia (Haddi, or sweeper caste).Bēdar or Bōya.—“Throughout the hills,” Buchanan writes,43“northward from Capaladurga, are many cultivated spots, in which, during Tippoo’s government, were settled many Baydaru or hunters, who received twelve pagodas (£4 5s.) a year, and served as irregular troops whenever required. Being accustomed to pursue tigers and deer in the woods, they were excellent marksmen with their match-locks, and indefatigable in following their prey; which, in the time of war, was the life and property of every helpless creature that came in their way. During the wars of Hyder and his son, these men were chief instruments in the terrible depredationscommitted in the lower Carnatic. They were also frequently employed with success against the Poligars (feudal chiefs), whose followers were of a similar description.” In the Gazetteer of the Anantapur district it is noted that “the Bōyas are the old fighting caste of this part of the country, whose exploits are so often recounted in the history books. The Poligars’ forces, and Haidar Ali’s famous troops were largely recruited from these people, and they still retain a keen interest in sport and manly exercises.”In his notes on the Bōyas, which Mr. N. E. Q. Mainwaring has kindly placed at my disposal, he writes as follows. “Although, until quite recently, many a Bōya served in the ranks of our Native army, being entered in the records thereof either under his caste title of Naidu, or under the heading of Gentu,44which was largely used in old day military records, yet this congenial method of earning a livelihood has now been swept away by a Government order, which directs that in future no Telegas shall be enlisted into the Indian army. That the Bōyas were much prized as fighting men in the stirring times of the eighteenth century is spoken to in the contemporaneous history of Colonel Wilks.45He speaks of the brave armies of the Poligars of Chitteldroog, who belonged to the Beder or Bōya race in the year 1755. Earlier, in 1750, Hyder Ali, who was then only a Naik in the service of the Mysore Rāja, used with great effect his select corps of Beder peons at the battle of Ginjee. Five years after thisbattle, when Hyder was rising to great eminence, he augmented his Beder peons, and used them as scouts for the purpose of ascertaining the whereabouts of his enemies, and for poisoning with the juice of the milk-hedge (Euphorbia Tirucalli) all wells in use by them, or in their line of march. The historian characterises them as being ‘brave and faithful thieves.’ In 1751, the most select army of Morari Row of Gooty consisted chiefly of Beder peons, and the accounts of their deeds in the field, as well as their defence of Gooty fort, which only fell after the meanness of device had been resorted to, prove their bravery in times gone by beyond doubt. There are still a number of old weapons to be found amongst the Bōyas, consisting of swords, daggers, spears, and matchlocks. None appear to be purely Bōya weapons, but they seem to have assumed the weapons of either Muhammadans or Hindus, according to which race held sway at the time. In some districts, there are still Bōya Poligars, but, as a rule, they are poor, and unable to maintain any position. Generally, the Bōyas live at peace with their neighbours, occasionally only committing a grave dacoity (robbery).46“In the Kurnool district, they have a bad name, and many are on the police records as habitual thieves and housebreakers. They seldom stoop to lesser offences. Some are carpenters, others blacksmiths who manufacture all sorts of agricultural implements. Some, again, are engaged as watchmen, and others make excellent snares for fish out of bamboo. But the majority of them are agriculturists, and most of them work on their own putta lands. They are now a hard-working, industrious people, who have become thrifty by dint of their industry,and whose former predatory habits are being forgotten. Each village, or group of villages, submits to the authority of a headman, who is generally termed the Naidu, less commonly Dora as chieftain. In some parts of Kurnool, the headmen are called Simhasana Bōyas. The headman presides at all functions, and settles, with the assistance of the elders, any disputes that may arise in the community regarding division of property, adultery, and other matters. The headman has the power to inflict fines, the amount of which is regulated by the status and wealth of the defaulter. But it is always arranged that the penalty shall be sufficient to cover the expense of feeding the panchayatdars (members of council), and leave a little over to be divided between the injured party and the headman. In this way, the headman gets paid for his services, and practically fixes his own remuneration.”It is stated in the Manual of the Bellary district that “of the various Hindu castes in Bellary, the Bōyas (called in Canarese Bēdars, Byēdas, or Byādās) are far the strongest numerically. Many of the Poligars whom Sir Thomas Munro found in virtual possession of the country when it was added to the Company belonged to this caste, and their irregular levies, and also a large proportion of Haidar’s formidable force, were of the same breed. Harpanahalli was the seat of one of the most powerful Poligars in the district in the eighteenth century. The founder of the family was a Bōya taliāri, who, on the subversion of the Vijayanagar dynasty, seized on two small districts near Harpanahalli. The Bōyas are perhaps the only people in the district who still retain any aptitude for manly sports. They are now for the most part cultivators and herdsmen or are engaged under Government as constables, peons, village watchmen(taliāris), and so forth. Their community provides an instructive example of the growth of caste sub-divisions. Both the Telugu-speaking Bōyas and the Canarese-speaking Bēdars are split into the two main divisions of Ūru or village men, and Myāsa or grass-land men, and each of these divisions is again sub-divided into a number of exogamous Bedagas. Four of the best known of these sub-divisions are Yemmalavaru or buffalo-men; Mandalavaru or men of the herd; Pūlavaru or flower-men, and Mīnalavaru or fish-men. They are in no way totemistic. Curiously enough, each Bedagu has its own particular god, to which its members pay special reverence. But these Bedagas bear the same names among both the Bōyas and the Bēdars, and also among both the Ūru and Myāsa divisions of both Bōyas and Bēdars. It thus seems clear that, at some distant period, all the Bōyas and all the Bēdars must have belonged to one homogeneous caste. At present, though Ūru Bōyas will marry with Ūru Bēdars and Myāsa Bōyas with Myāsa Bēdars, there is no intermarriage between Ūrus and Myāsas, whether they be Bōyas or Bēdars. Even if Ūrus and Myāsas dine together, they sit in different rows, each division by themselves. Again, the Ūrus (whether Bōyas or Bēdars) will eat chicken and drink alcohol, but the Myāsas will not touch a fowl or any form of strong drink, and are so strict in this last matter that they will not even sit on mats made of the leaf of the date-palm, the tree which in Bellary provides all the toddy. The Ūrus, moreover, celebrate their marriages with the ordinary ceremonial of the hālu-kamba or milk-post, and the surge, or bathing of the happy pair; the bride sits on a flour-grinding stone, and the bridegroom stands on a basket full of cholam (millet), and they call in Brāhmans to officiate. But the Myāsas have a simplerritual, which omits most of these points, and dispenses with the Brāhman. Other differences are that the Ūru women wear ravikkais or tight-fitting bodices, while the Myāsas tuck them under their waist-string. Both divisions eat beef, and both have a hereditary headman called the ejamān, and hereditary Dāsaris who act as their priests.”
Kambla Buffalo Race.Kambla Buffalo Race.The Bants are fond of out-door sports, football and buffalo-racing being amongst their favourite amusements. But the most popular of all is cock-fighting. Every Bant, who is not a Jain, takes an interest in this sport, and large assemblages of cocks are found at every fair and festival throughout South Canara. “The outsider,” it has been said,35“cannot fail to be struck with the tremendous excitement that attends a village fair in South Canara. Large numbers of cocks are displayed for sale, and groups of excited people may be seen huddled together, bending down with intense eagerness to watch every detail in the progress of a combat between two celebrated village game-cocks.” Cock fights on an elaborate scale take place on the day after theDīpāvali, Sankaranthi or Vinayakachathurthi, and Gokalāshtami festivals, outside the village boundary. At Hiriadaka, in October, 1907, more than a hundred birds were tethered by the leg to the scrub jungle composed of the evergreen shrubIxora coccinea, or carried in the arms of their owners or youngsters. Only males, from the town and surrounding villages, were witnesses of the spectacle. The tethered birds, if within range of each other, excited by the constant crowing and turmoil, indulged in an impromptu fight. Grains of rice and water were poured into the mouths and over the heads of the birds before the fight, and after each round. The birds were armed with cunningly devised steel spurs, constituting a battery of variously curved and sinuous weapons. It is believed that the Bhūta (demon) is appeased, if the blood from the wounds drops on the ground. The men, whose duty it is to separate the birds at the end of a round, sometimes receive nasty wounds from the spurs. The tail feathers of a wounded bird are lifted up, and a palm leaf fan or towel is waved to and fro over the cloacal orifice to revive it. The owner of a victorious bird becomes the possessor of the vanquished bird, dead or alive. At an exhibition of the products of South Canara, during a recent visit of the Governor of Madras to Mangalore, a collection of spurs was exhibited in the class “household implements.”Kambla Racing Buffaloes.Kambla Racing Buffaloes.For the following note on buffalo races, I am indebted to Mr. H. O. D. Harding. “This is a sport that has grown up among a race of cultivators of wet land. It is, I believe, peculiar to South Canara, where all the cultivation worth mentioning is wet. The Bants and Jains, and other landowners of position, own and run buffaloes, and the Billava, or toddy drawer, has also entered the racing world. Every rich Bant keeps hiskambla field consecrated to buffalo-racing, and his pair of racing buffaloes, costing from Rs. 150 to Rs. 500, are splendid animals; and, except for an occasional plough-drawing at the beginning of the cultivation season, are used for no purpose all the year, except racing. The racing is for no prize or stakes, and there is no betting, starter, judge, or winning post. Each pair of buffaloes runs the course alone, and is judged by the assembled crowd for pace and style, and, most important of all, the height and breadth of the splash which they make. Most people know the common levelling plank used by the ryots (cultivators) all over India to level the wet field after ploughing. It is a plank some 4 or 5 feet long by 1 or 1½ feet broad, and on it the driver stands to give it weight, and the buffaloes pull it over the mud of a flooded rice-field. This is the prototype of the buffalo-racing car, and any day during the cultivating season in the Tulu country one may see two boys racing for the love of the sport, as they drive their levelling boards. From this the racing car has been specialised, and, if a work of art for its own purpose, is not a car on which any one could or would wish to travel far. The leveller of utility is cut down to a plank about 1½ by 1 foot, sometimes handsomely carved, on which is fixed a gaily decorated wooden stool about 6 inches high and 10 inches across each way, hollowed out on the top, and just big enough to afford good standing for one foot. In the plank, on each side, are holes to let the mud and water through. The plank is fixed to a pole, which is tied to the buffalo’s yoke. The buffaloes are decorated with coloured jhūls and marvellous head-pieces of brass and silver (sometimes bearing the emblems of the sun and moon), and ropes which make a sort of bridle. The driver, stripping himself to the necessary minimum ofgarments, mounts, while some of his friends cling, like ants struggling round a dead beetle, to the buffaloes. When he is fairly up, they let go, and the animals start. The course is a wet rice-field, about 150 yards long, full of mud and water. All round are hundreds, or perhaps thousands of people, including Pariahs who dance in groups in the mud, play stick-game, and beat drums. In front of the galloping buffaloes the water is clear and still, throwing a powerful reflection of them as they gallop down the course, raising a perfect tornado of mud and water. The driver stands with one foot on the stool, and one on the pole of the car. He holds a whip aloft in one hand, and one of the buffaloes’ tails in the other. He drives without reins, with nothing but a waggling tail to hold on to and steer by. Opening his mouth wide, he shouts for all he is worth, while, to all appearances, a deluge of mud and water goes down his throat. So he comes down the course, the plank on which he stands throwing up a sort of Prince of Wales’ feathers of mud and water round him. The stance on the plank is no easy matter, and not a few men come to grief, but it is soft falling in the slush. Marks are given for pace, style, sticking to the plank, and throwing up the biggest and widest splash. Sometimes a kind of gallows, perhaps twenty feet high, is erected on the course, and there is a round of applause if the splash reaches up to or above it. Sometimes the buffaloes bolt, scatter the crowd, and get away into the young rice. At the end of the course, the driver jumps off with a parting smack at his buffaloes, which run up the slope of the field, and stop of themselves in what may be called the paddock. At a big meeting perhaps a hundred pairs, brought from all over the Tulu country, will compete, and the big men always send theirbuffaloes to the races headed by the local band. The roads are alive with horns and tom-toms for several days. The proceedings commence with a procession, which is not infrequently headed by a couple of painted dolls in an attitude suggestive of that reproductiveness, which the races really give thanks for. They are a sort of harvest festival, before the second or sugge crop is sown, and are usually held in October and November. Devils must be propitiated, and the meeting opens with a devil dance. A painted, grass-crowned devil dancer, riding a hobby-horse, proceeds with music round the kambla field. Then comes the buffalo procession, and the races commence. At a big meeting near Mangalore, the two leading devil dancers were dressed up in masks, and coat and trousers of blue mission cloth, and one had the genitalia represented by a long piece of blue cloth tipped with red, and enormous testes. Buffaloes, young and old, trained and untrained, compete, some without the plank attached to them, and others with planks but without drivers. Accidents sometimes happen, owing to the animals breaking away among the crowd. On one occasion, a man who was in front of a pair of buffaloes which were just about to start failed to jump clear of them. Catching hold of the yoke, he hung on to it by his hands, and was carried right down the course, and was landed safely at the other end. If he had dropped, he would have fallen among four pairs of hoofs, not to mention the planks, and would probably have been brained. It is often a case of owners up, and the sons and nephews of big Bants, worth perhaps Rs. 10,000 a year, drive the teams.”To the above account, I may add a few notes made at a buffalo race-meeting near Udipi, at which I was present. Each group of buffaloes, as they went up the track tothe starting-point, was preceded by the Koraga band playing on drum, fife and cymbals, Holeyas armed with staves and dancing, and a man holding a flag (nishāni). Sometimes, in addition to the flag, there is a pakkē or spear on the end of a bamboo covered with strips of cloth, or a makara torana,i.e., festooned cloths between two bamboos. The two last are permitted only if the buffaloes belong to a Bant or Brāhman, not if they are the property of a Billava. At the end of the races, the Ballāla chief, in whose field they had taken place, retired in procession, headed by a man carrying his banner, which, during the races, had been floating on the top of a long bamboo pole at the far end of the track. He was followed by the Koraga band, and the Holeyas attached to him, armed with clubs, and dancing a step dance amid discordant noises. Two Nalkes (devil-dancers), dressed up in their professional garb, and a torch-bearer also joined in the procession, in the rear of which came the Ballāla beneath a decorated umbrella. In every village there are rākshasas (demons), called Kambla-asura, who preside over the fields. The races are held to propitiate them, and, if they are omitted, it is believed that there will be a failure of the crop. According to some, Kambla-asura is the brother of Mahēshasura, the buffalo-headed giant, from whom Mysore receives its name. The Koragas sit up through the night before the Kambla day, performing a ceremony called panikkuluni, or sitting under the dew. They sing songs to the accompaniment of the band, about their devil Nīcha, and offer toddy and a rice-pudding boiled in a large earthen pot, which is broken so that the pudding remains as a solid mass. This pudding is called kandēl addē, or pot pudding. On the morning of the races, the Holeyas scatter manure over the field, andplough it. On the following day, the seedlings are planted, without, as in ordinary cases, any ploughing. To propitiate various devils, the days following the races are devoted to cock-fighting. The Kamblas, in different places, have various names derived from the village deity, the chief village devil, or the village itself,e.g., Janardhana Dēvara, Daivala, or Udiyavar. The young men, who have the management of the buffaloes, are called Bannangayi Gurikara (half-ripe cocoanut masters) as they have the right of taking tender cocoanuts, as well as beaten rice to give them physical strength, without the special permission of their landlord. At the village of Vandar, the races take place in a dry field, which has been ploughed, and beaten to break up the clods of earth. For this reason they are called podi (powder) Kambla.A pair of buffaloes, belonging to the field in which the races take place, should enter the field first, and a breach of this observance leads to discussion and quarrels. On one occasion, a dispute arose between two Bants in connection with the question of precedence. One of them brought his own pair of buffaloes, and the other a borrowed pair. If the latter had brought his own animals, he would have had precedence over the former. But, as his animals were borrowed, precedence was given to the man who brought his own buffaloes. This led to a dispute, and the races were not commenced until the delicate point at issue was decided. In some places, a long pole, called pūkāre, decorated with flags, flowers, and festoons of leaves, is set up in the Kambla field, sometimes on a platform. Billavas are in charge of this pole, which is worshipped, throughout the races, and others may not touch it.Pūkāre Post at Kambla Buffalo Races.Pūkāre Post at Kambla Buffalo Races.Fines inflicted by the Bant caste council are, I am informed, spent in the celebration of a temple festival.In former days, those found guilty by the council were beaten with tamarind switches, made to stand exposed to the sun, or big red ants were thrown over their bodies. Sometimes, to establish the innocence of an accused person, he had to take a piece of red-hot iron (axe, etc.) in his hand, and give it to his accuser.At a puberty ceremony among some Bants the girl sits in the courtyard of her house on five unhusked cocoanuts covered with the bamboo cylinder which is used for storing paddy. Women place four pots filled with water, and containing betel leaves and nuts, round the girl, and empty the contents over her head. She is then secluded in an outhouse. The women are entertained with a feast, which must include fowl and fish curry. The cocoanuts are given to a washerwoman. On the fourth day, the girl is bathed, and received back at the house. Beaten rice, and rice flour mixed with jaggery (crude sugar) are served out to those assembled. The girl is kept gōsha (secluded) for a time, and fed up with generous diet.Under the aliya santāna system of inheritance, the High Court has ruled that there is no marriage within the meaning of the Penal Code. But, though divorce and remarriage are permitted to women, there are formal rules and ceremonies observed in connection with them, and amongst the well-to-do classes divorce is not looked upon as respectable, and is not frequent. The fictitious marriage prevailing amongst the Nāyars is unknown among the Bants, and a wife also usually leaves the family house, and resides at her husband’s, unless she occupies so senior a position in her own family as to make it desirable that she should live on the family estate.The Bants are divided into a number of balis (exogamous septs), which are traced in the female line,i.e., a boy belongs to his mother’s, not to his father’s bali. Children belonging to the same bali cannot marry, and the prohibition extends to certain allied (koodu) balis. Moreover, a man cannot marry his father’s brother’s daughter, though she belongs to a different bali. In a memorandum by Mr. M. Mundappa Bangera,36it is stated that “bali in aliya santāna families corresponds to gōtra of the Brāhmins governed by Hindu law, but differs in that it is derived from the mother’s side, whereas gōtra is always derived from the father’s side. A marriage between a boy and girl belonging to the same bali is considered incestuous, as falling within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. It is not at all difficult to find out the bali to which a man or woman belongs, as one can scarcely be found who does not know one’s own bali by rote. And the heads of caste, who preside at every wedding party, and who are also consulted by the elders of the boy or girl before an alliance is formed, are such experts in these matters that they decide at once without reference to any books or rules whether intermarriages between persons brought before them can be lawfully performed or not.” As examples of balis among the Bants, the following may be cited:—Bellathannaya, jaggery.Bhūthiannaya, ashes.Chāliannaya, weaver.Edinnaya, hornet’s nest.Karkadabennai, scorpion.Kayerthannaya (Strychnos Nux-vomica).Kochattabannayya, or Kajjarannayya, jack tree (Artocarpus integrifolia).Koriannaya, fowl.Pathanchithannaya, green peas.Perugadannaya, bandicoot rat.Poyilethannaya, one who removes the evil eye.Puliattannaya, tiger.Rāgithannaya, rāgi (Eleusine Coracana).Infant marriage is not prohibited, but is not common, and both men and girls are usually married after they have reached maturity. There are two forms of marriage, one called kai dhāre for marriages between virgins and bachelors, the other called budu dhāre for the marriage of widows. After a match has been arranged, the formal betrothal, called ponnapāthera or nischaya tambula, takes place. The bridegroom’s relatives and friends proceed in a body on the appointed day to the bride’s house, and are there entertained at a grand dinner, to which the bride’s relatives and friends are also bidden. Subsequently the karnavans (heads) of the two families formally engage to perform the marriage, and plates of betel leaves and areca nuts are exchanged, and the betel and nuts partaken of by the two parties. The actual marriage ceremony is performed at the house of the bride or bridegroom, as may be most convenient. The proceedings commence with the bridegroom seating himself in the marriage pandal, a booth or canopy specially erected for the occasion. He is there shaved by the village barber, and then retires and bathes. This done, both he and the bride are conducted to the pandal by their relations, or sometimes by the village headman. They walk thrice round the seat, and then sit down side by side. The essential and binding part of the ceremony, called dhāre, then takes place. The right hand of the bride being placed over the right hand of the bridegroom, a silver vessel (dhāre gindi) filled with water, with a cocoanut over the mouth and the flower of the areca palm on the cocoanut, is placed on the joined hands. The parents, the managers of the two families, and the village headmen all touch the vessel, which, with the hands of the bridal pair, is moved up and down three times. In certain families the water is poured from thevessel into the united hands of the couple, and this betokens the gift of the bride. This form of gift by pouring water was formerly common, and was not confined to the gift of a bride. It still survives in the marriage ceremonies of various castes, and the name of the Bant ceremony shows that it must once have been universal among them. The bride and bridegroom then receive the congratulations of the guests, who express a hope that the happy couple may become the parents of twelve sons and twelve daughters. An empty plate, and another containing rice, are next placed before the pair, and their friends sprinkle them with rice from the one, and place a small gift, generally four annas, in the other. The bridegroom then makes a gift to the bride. This is called sirdachi, and varies in amount according to the position of the parties. This must be returned to the husband, if his wife leaves him, or if she is divorced for misconduct. The bride is then taken back in procession to her home. A few days later she is again taken to the bridegroom’s house, and must serve her husband with food. He makes another money present to her, and after that the marriage is consummated.According to another account of the marriage ceremony among some Bants, the barber shaves the bridegroom’s face, using cow’s milk instead of water, and touches the bride’s forehead with razor. The bride and bridegroom bathe, and dress up in new clothes. A plank covered with a newly-washed cloth supplied by a washerman, a tray containing raw rice, a lighted lamp, betel leaves and areca nuts, etc., are placed in the pandal. A girl carries a tray on which are placed a lighted lamp, a measure full of raw rice, and betel. She is followed by the bridegroom conducted by her brother, and the bride, led by the bridegroom’s sister. They enterthe pandal and, after going round the articles contained therein five times, sit down on the plank. An elderly woman, belonging to the family of the caste headman, brings a tray containing rice, and places it in front of the couple, over whom she sprinkles a little of the rice. The assembled men and women then place presents of money on the tray, and sprinkle rice over the couple. The right hand of the bride is held by the headman, and her uncle, and laid in that of the bridegroom. A cocoanut is placed over the mouth of a vessel, which is decorated with mango leaves and flowers of the areca palm. The headman and male relations of the bride place this vessel thrice in the hands of the bridal couple. The vessel is subsequently emptied at the foot of a cocoanut tree.The foregoing account shows that the Bant marriage is a good deal more than concubinage. It is indeed as formal a marriage as is to be found among any people in the world, and the freedom of divorce which is allowed cannot deprive it of its essential character. Widows are married with much less formality. The ceremony consists simply of joining the hands of the couple, but, strange to say, a screen is placed between them. All widows are allowed to marry again, but it is, as a rule, only the young women who actually do so. If a widow becomes pregnant, she must marry or suffer loss of caste.The Bants all burn their dead, except in the case of children under seven, and those who have died of leprosy or of epidemic disease such as cholera or small-pox. The funeral pile must consist at least partly of mango wood. On the ninth, eleventh or thirteenth day, people are fed in large numbers, but the Jains now substitute for this a distribution of cocoanuts on the third, fifth,seventh, or ninth day. Once a year—generally in October—a ceremony called agelū is performed for the propitiation of ancestors.From a detailed account of the Bant death ceremonies, I gather that the news of a death is conveyed to the caste people by a Holeya. A carpenter, accompanied by musicians, proceeds to cut down a mango tree for the funeral pyre. The body is bathed, and laid out on a plank. Clad in new clothes, it is conveyed with music to the burning-ground. A barber carries thither a pot containing fire. The corpse is set down near the pyre and divested of the new clothes, which are distributed between a barber, washerman, carpenter, a Billava and Holeya. The pyre is kindled by a Billava, and the mat on which the corpse has been lying is thrown thereon by a son or nephew of the deceased. On the third day the relations go to the burning-ground, and a barber and washerman sprinkle water over the ashes. Some days later, the caste people are invited to attend, and a barber, washerman, and carpenter build up on the spot where the corpse was burnt a lofty structure, made of bamboo and areca palm, in an odd number of tiers, and supported on an odd number of posts. It is decorated with cloths, fruits, tender cocoanuts, sugarcane, flowers, mango leaves, areca palm flowers, etc., and a fence is set up round it. The sons and other relations of the deceased carry to the burning-ground three balls of cooked rice (pinda) dyed with turmeric and tied up in a cloth, some raw rice dyed with turmeric, pieces of green plantain fruit, and pumpkin and a cocoanut. They go thrice round the structure, carrying the various articles in trays on their heads, and deposit them therein. The relations then throw a little of the coloured rice into the structure, and one of the castemen sprinkles water contained in a mango leaf over their hands. After bathing, they return home. The clothes, jewels, etc., of the deceased are laid on a cloth spread inside the house. A piece of turmeric is suspended from the ceiling by a string, and a tray containing water coloured yellow placed beneath it. Round this the females seat themselves. A cocoanut is broken, and a barber sprinkles the water thereof contained in a mango leaf over those assembled. On the following day, various kinds of food are prepared, and placed on leaves, with a piece of new cloth, within a room of the house. The cloth remains there for a year, when it is renewed. The renewal continues until another death occurs in the family.In the following table, the cephalic index of the Bants is compared with that of the Billavas and Shivalli Brāhmans:—Average.Maximum.Minimum.Brahman80.496.472Billava80.191.571Bant7891.270.8The headman among the Bants is generally called Guttinayya, meaning person of the guttu or site. Every village, or group of villages, possesses a guttu, and the Bant who occupies, or holds in possession the house or site set apart as the guttu is the Guttinayya. When this passes to another by sale or inheritance, the office of headman passes with it. It is said that, in some instances, the headmanship has in this way passed to classes other than Bants,e.g., Brāhmans and Jains. In some villages, the headman is, as among some other castes, called Gurikāra, whose appointment is hereditary.A few supplementary notes may be added on the Parivara, Nād, and Māsādika Bants. The Parivaras are confined to the southern taluks of the South Canara district. They may interdine, but may not intermarry with the other section. The rule of inheritance is makkalakattu (in the male line). Brāhman priests are engaged for the various ceremonials, so the Parivaras are more Brāhmanised than the Nād or Māsādika Bants. The Parivaras may resort to the wells used by Brāhmans, and they consequently claim superiority over the other sections. Among the Nād Bants, no marriage badge is tied on the neck of the bride. At a Parivara marriage, after the dhāre ceremony, the bridegroom ties a gold bead, called dhāre mani, on the neck of the bride. The remarriage of widows is not in vogue. In connection with the death ceremonies, a car is not, as among the Nād and Māsādika sections, set up over the mound (dhūpe). On the eleventh day, the spreading of a cloth on the mound for offerings of food must be done by Nekkāras, who wash clothes for Billavas.The Nād or Nādava and Māsādika Bants follow the aliya santāna law of succession, and intermarriage is permitted between the two sections. The names of the balis, which have already been given, are common among the Māsādikas, and do not apply to the Nāds, among whom different sept names occur,e.g., Honne, Shetti, Koudichi, etc. Elaborate death ceremonies are only performed if the deceased was old, or a respected member of the community. The corpse is generally cremated in one of the rice-fields belonging to the family. After the funeral, the male members of the family return home, and place a vessel containing water and light in a room. One or two women mustremain in this room, and the light must be kept burning until the bojja, or final death ceremonies, are over. The water in the vessel must be renewed twice daily. At the final ceremonies, a feast is given to the castemen, and in some places, the headman insists on the people of the house of mourning giving him a jewel as a pledge that the bojja will be performed on the ninth, eleventh, or thirteenth day. The headman visits the house on the previous day, and, after examination of the provisions, helps in cutting up vegetables, etc. On the bojja day, copper and silver coins, and small pieces of gold, are buried or sown in the field in which the ceremony is performed. This is called hanabiththodu. The lofty structure, called gurigi or upparige, is set up over the dhūpe or ashes heaped up into a mound, or in the field in which the body was cremated, only in the event of the deceased being a person of importance. In some places, two kinds of structure are used, one called gurigi, composed of several tiers, for males, and the other called dēlagūdu, consisting of a single tier, for females. Devil-dancers are engaged, and the commonest kōla performed by them is the eru kōla, or man and hobby-horse. In the room containing the vessel of water, four sticks are planted in the ground, and tied together. Over the sticks a cloth is placed, and the vessel of water placed beneath it. A bit of string is tied to the ceiling, and a piece of turmeric or a gold ring is attached to the end of it, and suspended so as to touch the water in the vessel. This is called nīr neralu (shadow in water), and seems to be a custom among various Tulu castes. After the bojja ceremony, all those who are under death pollution stand in two rows. A Madavali (washerman) touches them with acloth, and a Kēlasi (barber) sprinkles water over them. In this manner, they are freed from pollution.The most common title among the Bants is Chetti or Setti, but many others occur,e.g., Heggade, Nāyaka, Bangēra, Rai, Ballālaru, etc.Bārang Jhodia.—A sub-division of Poroja.Bardēshkar(people of twelve countries).—Some families among Konkani Brāhmans go by this name.Bāriki.—Bāriki is the name for village watchmen in Southern Ganjam, whose duty it further is to guide the traveller on the march from place to place. In the Bellary Manual, Bārika is given as the name for Canarese Kabbēras, who are village servants, who keep the village chāvadi (caste meeting-house) clean, look after the wants of officials halting in the village, and perform various other duties. In the Census Report, 1901, the Bārikas are said to be usually Bōyas. The Bārika of Mysore is defined by Mr. L. Rice as37“a menial among the village servants; a deputy talāri, who is employed to watch the crops from the growing crop to the granary.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Bellary district, that “in the middle of the threshold of nearly all the gateways of the ruined fortifications round the Bellary villages will be noticed a roughly cylindrical or conical stone, something like a lingam. This is the boddu-rāyi, literally the navel stone, and so the middle stone. It was planted there when the fort was built, and is affectionately regarded as being the boundary of the village site. Once a year, in May, just before the sowing season begins, a ceremony takes place in connection with it. Reverence is first made to the bullocksof the village, and in the evening they are driven through the gateway past the boddu-rāyi with tom-toms, flutes, and all kinds of music. The Bārike next does pūja (worship) to the stone, and then a string of mango leaves is tied across the gateway above it. The villagers now form sides, one party trying to drive the bullocks through the gate, and the other trying to keep them out. The greatest uproar and confusion naturally follow, and, in the midst of the turmoil, some bullock or other eventually breaks through the guardians of the gate, and gains the village. If that first bullock is a red one, the red grains on the red soils will flourish in the coming season. If he is white, white crops like cotton and white cholam will prosper. If he is red-and-white, both kinds will do well. When the rains fail, and, in any case, on the first full moon in September, rude human figures drawn on the ground with powdered charcoal may be seen at cross-roads and along big thoroughfares. They represent Jōkumāra the rain-god, and are made by the Bārikes—a class of village servants, who are usually of the Gaurimakkalu sub-division of the Kabbēras. The villagers give the artists some small remuneration, and believe that luck comes to those who pass over the figures.”Bārike.—A title of Gaudos and other Oriya castes.Barrellu(buffaloes).—An exogamous sept of Kāpu.Bāsala.—Recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as Telugu beggars and soothsayers in Vizagapatam. The word is apparently a corruption of Bāsa-vālu, a sage. The Bāsa-vālu pretend to be messengers of Indra, the chief of the Dēvatas, and prognosticate coming events.Basari(fig tree).—A gōtra of Kurni.Bāsava Golla.—A name for certain Koyis of the Godāvari district, whose grandfathers had a quarrel withsome of their neighbours, and separated from them. The name Bāsava is said to be derived from bhāsha, a language, as these Koyis speak a different language from the true Gollas.38In like manner, Bāsa Kondhs are those who speak their proper language, in contradistinction to those who speak Oriya, or Oriya mixed with Kui.Basavi.—SeeDēva-dāsi.Basiya Korono.—A sub-division of Korono.Basruvōgaru(basru, belly).—An exogamous sept of Gauda.Baththāla(rice).—An exogamous sept of Kamma.Batlu(cup).—An exogamous sept of Kuruba.Bauri.—There are found in the Madras Presidency nomad gangs of Bauris or Bāwariyas, who are described39as “one of the worst criminal tribes of India. The sphere of their operations extends throughout the length and breadth of the country. They not only commit robberies, burglaries and thefts, but also practice the art of manufacturing and passing counterfeit coin. They keep with them a small quantity of wheat and sandal seeds in a small tin or brass case, which they call Dēvakadana or God’s grain, and a tuft of peacock’s feathers, all in a bundle. They are very superstitious, and do not embark on any enterprise without first ascertaining by omens whether it will be attended with success or not. This they do by taking at random a small quantity of grains out of their Dēvakadana and counting the number of grains, the omen being considered good or bad according as the number of seeds is odd or even. For a detailed record of the history ofthis criminal class, and the methods employed in the performance of criminal acts, I would refer the reader to the accounts given by Mr. Paupa Rao40and Mr. W. Crooke.41Bāvāji.—The Bāvājis are Bairāgi or Gosāyi beggars, who travel about the country. They are known by various names,e.g., Bairāgi, Sādu, etc.Bāvuri.—The Bāvuris, or Bauris, are a low class of Oriya basket-makers, living in Ganjam, and are more familiarly known as Khodālo. They are a polluting class, living in separate quarters, and occupy a position lower than the Sāmantiyas, but higher than the Kondras, Dandāsis, and Haddis. They claim that palanquin (dhooly or dūli) bearing is their traditional occupation, and consequently call themselves Bōyi. “According to one story,” Risley writes,42“they were degraded for attempting to steal food from the banquet of the gods; another professes to trace them back to a mythical ancestor named Bāhak Rishi (the bearer of burdens), and tells how, while returning from a marriage procession, they sold the palanquin they had been hired to carry, got drunk on the proceeds, and assaulted their guru (religious preceptor), who cursed them for the sacrilege, and condemned them to rank thenceforward among the lowest castes of the community.” The Bāvuris are apparently divided into two endogamous sections, viz., Dulia and Khandi. The former regard themselves as superior to the latter, and prefer to be called Khodālo. Some of these have given up eating beef, call themselves Dāsa Khodālos, and claim descent from oneBalliga Doss, a famous Bāvuri devotee, who is said to have worked wonders, analogous to those of Nandan of the Paraiyan community. To this section the caste priests belong. At Russelkonda, a woman, when asked if she was a Bāvuri, replied that the caste is so called by others, but that its real name is Khodālo. Others, in reply to a question whether they belonged to the Khandi section, became angry, and said that the Khandis are inferior, because they eat frogs.The Bāvuris gave the name of two gōtras, saptha bhavunia and nāga, which are said to be exogamous. The former offer food to the gods on seven leaves of the white gourd melon,Benincasa cerifera(kokkara), and the latter on jak (Artocarpus integrifolia: panasa) leaves. All over the Oriya country there is a general belief that house-names or bamsams are foreign to the Oriya castes, and only possessed by the Telugus. But some genuine Oriya castes,e.g., Haddis, Dandāsis and Bhondāris, have exogamous bamsams.For every group of villages (muttah), the Bāvuris apparently have a headman called Bēhara, who is assisted by Naikos or Dolo Bēharas, or, in some places, Dondias or Porichas, who hold sway over a smaller number of villages. Each village has its own headman, called Bhollobhaya (good brother), to whose notice all irregularities are brought. These are either settled by himself, or referred to the Bēhara and Naiko. In some villages, in addition to the Bhollobhaya, there is a caste servant called Dangua or Dogara. For serious offences, a council-meeting is convened by the Bēhara, and attended by the Bhollobhayas, Naikos, and a few leading members of the community. The meeting is held in an open plain outside the village. Once in two orthree years, a council-meeting, called mondolo, is held, at which various matters are discussed, and decided. The expenses of meetings are defrayed by the inhabitants of the villages in which they take place. Among the most important matters to be decided by tribunals are adultery, eating with lower castes, the re-admission of convicts into the caste, etc. Punishment takes the form of a fine, and trial by ordeal is apparently not resorted to. A man, who is convicted of committing adultery, or eating with a member of a lower caste, is received back into the caste on payment of the fine. A woman, who has been proved guilty of such offences, is not so taken back. It is said that, when a member of a higher caste commits adultery with a Bāvuri woman, he is sometimes received into the Bāvuri caste. The Bēhara receives a small fee annually from each village or family, and also a small present of money for each marriage.Girls are married either before or after puberty. A man may marry his maternal uncle’s, but not his paternal aunt’s daughter. At an adult marriage, the festivities last for four days, whereas, at an infant marriage, they are extended over seven days. When a young man’s parents have selected a girl for him, they consult a Brāhman, and, if he decides that the marriage will be auspicious, they proceed to the girl’s home, and ask that a day be fixed for the betrothal. On the appointed day the amount of money, which is to be paid by the bridegroom-elect for jewels, etc., is fixed. One or two new cloths must be given to the girl’s grandmother, and the man’s party must announce the number of feasts they intend to give to the castemen. If the family is poor, the feasts are mentioned, but do not actually take place. The marriage ceremony is always celebrated at night. On the evening of the day prior thereto, the bride andbridegroom’s people proceed to the temple of the village goddess (Tākurāni), and, on their way home, go to seven houses of members of their own or some higher caste, and ask them to give them water, which is poured into a small vessel. This vessel is taken home, and hung over the bedi (marriage dais). The water is used by the bride and bridegroom on the following morning for bathing. On the marriage day, the bridegroom proceeds to the bride’s village, and is met on the way by her party, and escorted by his brother-in-law to the dais. The Bhollobhaya enquires whether the bride’s party have received everything as arranged, and, when he has been assured on this point, the bride is brought to the dais by her maternal uncle. She carries with her in her hands a little salt and rice; and, after throwing these over the bridegroom, she sits by his side. The grandfathers of the contracting couple, or a priest called Dhiyāni, officiate. Their palms are placed together, and the hands united by a string dyed with turmeric. The union of the hands is called hasthagonti, and is the binding portion of the ceremony. Turmeric water is poured over the hands seven times from a chank or sankha shell. Seven married women then throw over the heads of the couple a mixture ofZizyphus Jujuba(borkolipathro) leaves, rice smeared with turmeric, andCynodon Dactylon(dhūba) culms. This rite is called bhondaivaro, and is performed at all auspicious ceremonies. The fingers of the bride and bridegroom are then linked together, and they are led by the wife of the bride’s brother seven times round the bedi. The priest then proclaims that the soot can soon be wiped off the cooking-pot, but the connection brought about by the marriage is enduring, and relationship is secured for seven generations. The pair are taken indoors, and fed. Theremaining days of the marriage ceremonies are given up to feasting. The remarriage of widows is permitted. A widow is expected to marry the younger brother of her deceased husband, or, with his permission, may marry whom she likes.When a girl attains maturity, she is seated on a new mat, andZizyphus Jujubaleaves are thrown over her. This ceremony is sometimes repeated daily for six days, during which sweets, etc., are given to the girl, and women who bring presents are fed. On the seventh day, the girl is taken to a tank (pond), and bathed.The dead are either buried or burnt. The corpse is, at the funeral, borne in the hands, or on a bier, by four men. Soon after the village boundary has been crossed, the widow of the deceased throws rice over the eyes of the corpse, and also a little fire, after taking it three times round. She usually carries with her a pot and ladle, which she throws away. If an elderly woman dies, these rites are performed by her daughter-in-law. At the burial-ground, the corpse is taken seven times round the grave, and, as it is lowered into it, those present say “Oh! trees, Oh! sky, Oh! earth, we are laying him in. It is not our fault.” When the grave has been filled in, the figures of a man and woman are drawn on it, and all throw earth over it, saying “You were living with us; now you have left us. Do not trouble the people.” On their return home, the mourners sprinkle cowdung water about the house and over their feet, and toddy is partaken of. On the following day, all the old pots are thrown away, and the agnates eat rice cooked with margosa (Melia Azadirachta) leaves. Food is offered to the dead person, either at the burial-ground or in the backyard of the house. On the tenth day, the Dhiyani,as the priest is called, is sent for, and arrives with his drum (dhiyani). A small hut is erected on a tank bund (embankment), and food cooked seven times, and offered seven times on seven fragments of pots. A new cloth is spread, and on it food, fruits, a chank shell, etc., are placed, and offered to the deceased. The various articles are put into a new pot, and the son, going into the water up to his neck, throws the pot into the air, and breaks it. The celebrants of the rite then return to the house, and stand in a row in front thereof. They are there purified by means of milk smeared over their hands by the Dhiyani. On the twelfth day, food is offered on twelve leaves.The Bāvuris do not worship Jagannāthāswāmi, or other of the higher deities, but reverence their ancestors and the village goddesses or Tākurānis. Like other Oriya classes, the Bāvuris name their children on the twenty-first day. Opprobrious names are common among them,e.g., Ogādu (dirty fellow), Kangāli (wretched fellow), Haddia (Haddi, or sweeper caste).Bēdar or Bōya.—“Throughout the hills,” Buchanan writes,43“northward from Capaladurga, are many cultivated spots, in which, during Tippoo’s government, were settled many Baydaru or hunters, who received twelve pagodas (£4 5s.) a year, and served as irregular troops whenever required. Being accustomed to pursue tigers and deer in the woods, they were excellent marksmen with their match-locks, and indefatigable in following their prey; which, in the time of war, was the life and property of every helpless creature that came in their way. During the wars of Hyder and his son, these men were chief instruments in the terrible depredationscommitted in the lower Carnatic. They were also frequently employed with success against the Poligars (feudal chiefs), whose followers were of a similar description.” In the Gazetteer of the Anantapur district it is noted that “the Bōyas are the old fighting caste of this part of the country, whose exploits are so often recounted in the history books. The Poligars’ forces, and Haidar Ali’s famous troops were largely recruited from these people, and they still retain a keen interest in sport and manly exercises.”In his notes on the Bōyas, which Mr. N. E. Q. Mainwaring has kindly placed at my disposal, he writes as follows. “Although, until quite recently, many a Bōya served in the ranks of our Native army, being entered in the records thereof either under his caste title of Naidu, or under the heading of Gentu,44which was largely used in old day military records, yet this congenial method of earning a livelihood has now been swept away by a Government order, which directs that in future no Telegas shall be enlisted into the Indian army. That the Bōyas were much prized as fighting men in the stirring times of the eighteenth century is spoken to in the contemporaneous history of Colonel Wilks.45He speaks of the brave armies of the Poligars of Chitteldroog, who belonged to the Beder or Bōya race in the year 1755. Earlier, in 1750, Hyder Ali, who was then only a Naik in the service of the Mysore Rāja, used with great effect his select corps of Beder peons at the battle of Ginjee. Five years after thisbattle, when Hyder was rising to great eminence, he augmented his Beder peons, and used them as scouts for the purpose of ascertaining the whereabouts of his enemies, and for poisoning with the juice of the milk-hedge (Euphorbia Tirucalli) all wells in use by them, or in their line of march. The historian characterises them as being ‘brave and faithful thieves.’ In 1751, the most select army of Morari Row of Gooty consisted chiefly of Beder peons, and the accounts of their deeds in the field, as well as their defence of Gooty fort, which only fell after the meanness of device had been resorted to, prove their bravery in times gone by beyond doubt. There are still a number of old weapons to be found amongst the Bōyas, consisting of swords, daggers, spears, and matchlocks. None appear to be purely Bōya weapons, but they seem to have assumed the weapons of either Muhammadans or Hindus, according to which race held sway at the time. In some districts, there are still Bōya Poligars, but, as a rule, they are poor, and unable to maintain any position. Generally, the Bōyas live at peace with their neighbours, occasionally only committing a grave dacoity (robbery).46“In the Kurnool district, they have a bad name, and many are on the police records as habitual thieves and housebreakers. They seldom stoop to lesser offences. Some are carpenters, others blacksmiths who manufacture all sorts of agricultural implements. Some, again, are engaged as watchmen, and others make excellent snares for fish out of bamboo. But the majority of them are agriculturists, and most of them work on their own putta lands. They are now a hard-working, industrious people, who have become thrifty by dint of their industry,and whose former predatory habits are being forgotten. Each village, or group of villages, submits to the authority of a headman, who is generally termed the Naidu, less commonly Dora as chieftain. In some parts of Kurnool, the headmen are called Simhasana Bōyas. The headman presides at all functions, and settles, with the assistance of the elders, any disputes that may arise in the community regarding division of property, adultery, and other matters. The headman has the power to inflict fines, the amount of which is regulated by the status and wealth of the defaulter. But it is always arranged that the penalty shall be sufficient to cover the expense of feeding the panchayatdars (members of council), and leave a little over to be divided between the injured party and the headman. In this way, the headman gets paid for his services, and practically fixes his own remuneration.”It is stated in the Manual of the Bellary district that “of the various Hindu castes in Bellary, the Bōyas (called in Canarese Bēdars, Byēdas, or Byādās) are far the strongest numerically. Many of the Poligars whom Sir Thomas Munro found in virtual possession of the country when it was added to the Company belonged to this caste, and their irregular levies, and also a large proportion of Haidar’s formidable force, were of the same breed. Harpanahalli was the seat of one of the most powerful Poligars in the district in the eighteenth century. The founder of the family was a Bōya taliāri, who, on the subversion of the Vijayanagar dynasty, seized on two small districts near Harpanahalli. The Bōyas are perhaps the only people in the district who still retain any aptitude for manly sports. They are now for the most part cultivators and herdsmen or are engaged under Government as constables, peons, village watchmen(taliāris), and so forth. Their community provides an instructive example of the growth of caste sub-divisions. Both the Telugu-speaking Bōyas and the Canarese-speaking Bēdars are split into the two main divisions of Ūru or village men, and Myāsa or grass-land men, and each of these divisions is again sub-divided into a number of exogamous Bedagas. Four of the best known of these sub-divisions are Yemmalavaru or buffalo-men; Mandalavaru or men of the herd; Pūlavaru or flower-men, and Mīnalavaru or fish-men. They are in no way totemistic. Curiously enough, each Bedagu has its own particular god, to which its members pay special reverence. But these Bedagas bear the same names among both the Bōyas and the Bēdars, and also among both the Ūru and Myāsa divisions of both Bōyas and Bēdars. It thus seems clear that, at some distant period, all the Bōyas and all the Bēdars must have belonged to one homogeneous caste. At present, though Ūru Bōyas will marry with Ūru Bēdars and Myāsa Bōyas with Myāsa Bēdars, there is no intermarriage between Ūrus and Myāsas, whether they be Bōyas or Bēdars. Even if Ūrus and Myāsas dine together, they sit in different rows, each division by themselves. Again, the Ūrus (whether Bōyas or Bēdars) will eat chicken and drink alcohol, but the Myāsas will not touch a fowl or any form of strong drink, and are so strict in this last matter that they will not even sit on mats made of the leaf of the date-palm, the tree which in Bellary provides all the toddy. The Ūrus, moreover, celebrate their marriages with the ordinary ceremonial of the hālu-kamba or milk-post, and the surge, or bathing of the happy pair; the bride sits on a flour-grinding stone, and the bridegroom stands on a basket full of cholam (millet), and they call in Brāhmans to officiate. But the Myāsas have a simplerritual, which omits most of these points, and dispenses with the Brāhman. Other differences are that the Ūru women wear ravikkais or tight-fitting bodices, while the Myāsas tuck them under their waist-string. Both divisions eat beef, and both have a hereditary headman called the ejamān, and hereditary Dāsaris who act as their priests.”
Kambla Buffalo Race.Kambla Buffalo Race.The Bants are fond of out-door sports, football and buffalo-racing being amongst their favourite amusements. But the most popular of all is cock-fighting. Every Bant, who is not a Jain, takes an interest in this sport, and large assemblages of cocks are found at every fair and festival throughout South Canara. “The outsider,” it has been said,35“cannot fail to be struck with the tremendous excitement that attends a village fair in South Canara. Large numbers of cocks are displayed for sale, and groups of excited people may be seen huddled together, bending down with intense eagerness to watch every detail in the progress of a combat between two celebrated village game-cocks.” Cock fights on an elaborate scale take place on the day after theDīpāvali, Sankaranthi or Vinayakachathurthi, and Gokalāshtami festivals, outside the village boundary. At Hiriadaka, in October, 1907, more than a hundred birds were tethered by the leg to the scrub jungle composed of the evergreen shrubIxora coccinea, or carried in the arms of their owners or youngsters. Only males, from the town and surrounding villages, were witnesses of the spectacle. The tethered birds, if within range of each other, excited by the constant crowing and turmoil, indulged in an impromptu fight. Grains of rice and water were poured into the mouths and over the heads of the birds before the fight, and after each round. The birds were armed with cunningly devised steel spurs, constituting a battery of variously curved and sinuous weapons. It is believed that the Bhūta (demon) is appeased, if the blood from the wounds drops on the ground. The men, whose duty it is to separate the birds at the end of a round, sometimes receive nasty wounds from the spurs. The tail feathers of a wounded bird are lifted up, and a palm leaf fan or towel is waved to and fro over the cloacal orifice to revive it. The owner of a victorious bird becomes the possessor of the vanquished bird, dead or alive. At an exhibition of the products of South Canara, during a recent visit of the Governor of Madras to Mangalore, a collection of spurs was exhibited in the class “household implements.”Kambla Racing Buffaloes.Kambla Racing Buffaloes.For the following note on buffalo races, I am indebted to Mr. H. O. D. Harding. “This is a sport that has grown up among a race of cultivators of wet land. It is, I believe, peculiar to South Canara, where all the cultivation worth mentioning is wet. The Bants and Jains, and other landowners of position, own and run buffaloes, and the Billava, or toddy drawer, has also entered the racing world. Every rich Bant keeps hiskambla field consecrated to buffalo-racing, and his pair of racing buffaloes, costing from Rs. 150 to Rs. 500, are splendid animals; and, except for an occasional plough-drawing at the beginning of the cultivation season, are used for no purpose all the year, except racing. The racing is for no prize or stakes, and there is no betting, starter, judge, or winning post. Each pair of buffaloes runs the course alone, and is judged by the assembled crowd for pace and style, and, most important of all, the height and breadth of the splash which they make. Most people know the common levelling plank used by the ryots (cultivators) all over India to level the wet field after ploughing. It is a plank some 4 or 5 feet long by 1 or 1½ feet broad, and on it the driver stands to give it weight, and the buffaloes pull it over the mud of a flooded rice-field. This is the prototype of the buffalo-racing car, and any day during the cultivating season in the Tulu country one may see two boys racing for the love of the sport, as they drive their levelling boards. From this the racing car has been specialised, and, if a work of art for its own purpose, is not a car on which any one could or would wish to travel far. The leveller of utility is cut down to a plank about 1½ by 1 foot, sometimes handsomely carved, on which is fixed a gaily decorated wooden stool about 6 inches high and 10 inches across each way, hollowed out on the top, and just big enough to afford good standing for one foot. In the plank, on each side, are holes to let the mud and water through. The plank is fixed to a pole, which is tied to the buffalo’s yoke. The buffaloes are decorated with coloured jhūls and marvellous head-pieces of brass and silver (sometimes bearing the emblems of the sun and moon), and ropes which make a sort of bridle. The driver, stripping himself to the necessary minimum ofgarments, mounts, while some of his friends cling, like ants struggling round a dead beetle, to the buffaloes. When he is fairly up, they let go, and the animals start. The course is a wet rice-field, about 150 yards long, full of mud and water. All round are hundreds, or perhaps thousands of people, including Pariahs who dance in groups in the mud, play stick-game, and beat drums. In front of the galloping buffaloes the water is clear and still, throwing a powerful reflection of them as they gallop down the course, raising a perfect tornado of mud and water. The driver stands with one foot on the stool, and one on the pole of the car. He holds a whip aloft in one hand, and one of the buffaloes’ tails in the other. He drives without reins, with nothing but a waggling tail to hold on to and steer by. Opening his mouth wide, he shouts for all he is worth, while, to all appearances, a deluge of mud and water goes down his throat. So he comes down the course, the plank on which he stands throwing up a sort of Prince of Wales’ feathers of mud and water round him. The stance on the plank is no easy matter, and not a few men come to grief, but it is soft falling in the slush. Marks are given for pace, style, sticking to the plank, and throwing up the biggest and widest splash. Sometimes a kind of gallows, perhaps twenty feet high, is erected on the course, and there is a round of applause if the splash reaches up to or above it. Sometimes the buffaloes bolt, scatter the crowd, and get away into the young rice. At the end of the course, the driver jumps off with a parting smack at his buffaloes, which run up the slope of the field, and stop of themselves in what may be called the paddock. At a big meeting perhaps a hundred pairs, brought from all over the Tulu country, will compete, and the big men always send theirbuffaloes to the races headed by the local band. The roads are alive with horns and tom-toms for several days. The proceedings commence with a procession, which is not infrequently headed by a couple of painted dolls in an attitude suggestive of that reproductiveness, which the races really give thanks for. They are a sort of harvest festival, before the second or sugge crop is sown, and are usually held in October and November. Devils must be propitiated, and the meeting opens with a devil dance. A painted, grass-crowned devil dancer, riding a hobby-horse, proceeds with music round the kambla field. Then comes the buffalo procession, and the races commence. At a big meeting near Mangalore, the two leading devil dancers were dressed up in masks, and coat and trousers of blue mission cloth, and one had the genitalia represented by a long piece of blue cloth tipped with red, and enormous testes. Buffaloes, young and old, trained and untrained, compete, some without the plank attached to them, and others with planks but without drivers. Accidents sometimes happen, owing to the animals breaking away among the crowd. On one occasion, a man who was in front of a pair of buffaloes which were just about to start failed to jump clear of them. Catching hold of the yoke, he hung on to it by his hands, and was carried right down the course, and was landed safely at the other end. If he had dropped, he would have fallen among four pairs of hoofs, not to mention the planks, and would probably have been brained. It is often a case of owners up, and the sons and nephews of big Bants, worth perhaps Rs. 10,000 a year, drive the teams.”To the above account, I may add a few notes made at a buffalo race-meeting near Udipi, at which I was present. Each group of buffaloes, as they went up the track tothe starting-point, was preceded by the Koraga band playing on drum, fife and cymbals, Holeyas armed with staves and dancing, and a man holding a flag (nishāni). Sometimes, in addition to the flag, there is a pakkē or spear on the end of a bamboo covered with strips of cloth, or a makara torana,i.e., festooned cloths between two bamboos. The two last are permitted only if the buffaloes belong to a Bant or Brāhman, not if they are the property of a Billava. At the end of the races, the Ballāla chief, in whose field they had taken place, retired in procession, headed by a man carrying his banner, which, during the races, had been floating on the top of a long bamboo pole at the far end of the track. He was followed by the Koraga band, and the Holeyas attached to him, armed with clubs, and dancing a step dance amid discordant noises. Two Nalkes (devil-dancers), dressed up in their professional garb, and a torch-bearer also joined in the procession, in the rear of which came the Ballāla beneath a decorated umbrella. In every village there are rākshasas (demons), called Kambla-asura, who preside over the fields. The races are held to propitiate them, and, if they are omitted, it is believed that there will be a failure of the crop. According to some, Kambla-asura is the brother of Mahēshasura, the buffalo-headed giant, from whom Mysore receives its name. The Koragas sit up through the night before the Kambla day, performing a ceremony called panikkuluni, or sitting under the dew. They sing songs to the accompaniment of the band, about their devil Nīcha, and offer toddy and a rice-pudding boiled in a large earthen pot, which is broken so that the pudding remains as a solid mass. This pudding is called kandēl addē, or pot pudding. On the morning of the races, the Holeyas scatter manure over the field, andplough it. On the following day, the seedlings are planted, without, as in ordinary cases, any ploughing. To propitiate various devils, the days following the races are devoted to cock-fighting. The Kamblas, in different places, have various names derived from the village deity, the chief village devil, or the village itself,e.g., Janardhana Dēvara, Daivala, or Udiyavar. The young men, who have the management of the buffaloes, are called Bannangayi Gurikara (half-ripe cocoanut masters) as they have the right of taking tender cocoanuts, as well as beaten rice to give them physical strength, without the special permission of their landlord. At the village of Vandar, the races take place in a dry field, which has been ploughed, and beaten to break up the clods of earth. For this reason they are called podi (powder) Kambla.A pair of buffaloes, belonging to the field in which the races take place, should enter the field first, and a breach of this observance leads to discussion and quarrels. On one occasion, a dispute arose between two Bants in connection with the question of precedence. One of them brought his own pair of buffaloes, and the other a borrowed pair. If the latter had brought his own animals, he would have had precedence over the former. But, as his animals were borrowed, precedence was given to the man who brought his own buffaloes. This led to a dispute, and the races were not commenced until the delicate point at issue was decided. In some places, a long pole, called pūkāre, decorated with flags, flowers, and festoons of leaves, is set up in the Kambla field, sometimes on a platform. Billavas are in charge of this pole, which is worshipped, throughout the races, and others may not touch it.Pūkāre Post at Kambla Buffalo Races.Pūkāre Post at Kambla Buffalo Races.Fines inflicted by the Bant caste council are, I am informed, spent in the celebration of a temple festival.In former days, those found guilty by the council were beaten with tamarind switches, made to stand exposed to the sun, or big red ants were thrown over their bodies. Sometimes, to establish the innocence of an accused person, he had to take a piece of red-hot iron (axe, etc.) in his hand, and give it to his accuser.At a puberty ceremony among some Bants the girl sits in the courtyard of her house on five unhusked cocoanuts covered with the bamboo cylinder which is used for storing paddy. Women place four pots filled with water, and containing betel leaves and nuts, round the girl, and empty the contents over her head. She is then secluded in an outhouse. The women are entertained with a feast, which must include fowl and fish curry. The cocoanuts are given to a washerwoman. On the fourth day, the girl is bathed, and received back at the house. Beaten rice, and rice flour mixed with jaggery (crude sugar) are served out to those assembled. The girl is kept gōsha (secluded) for a time, and fed up with generous diet.Under the aliya santāna system of inheritance, the High Court has ruled that there is no marriage within the meaning of the Penal Code. But, though divorce and remarriage are permitted to women, there are formal rules and ceremonies observed in connection with them, and amongst the well-to-do classes divorce is not looked upon as respectable, and is not frequent. The fictitious marriage prevailing amongst the Nāyars is unknown among the Bants, and a wife also usually leaves the family house, and resides at her husband’s, unless she occupies so senior a position in her own family as to make it desirable that she should live on the family estate.The Bants are divided into a number of balis (exogamous septs), which are traced in the female line,i.e., a boy belongs to his mother’s, not to his father’s bali. Children belonging to the same bali cannot marry, and the prohibition extends to certain allied (koodu) balis. Moreover, a man cannot marry his father’s brother’s daughter, though she belongs to a different bali. In a memorandum by Mr. M. Mundappa Bangera,36it is stated that “bali in aliya santāna families corresponds to gōtra of the Brāhmins governed by Hindu law, but differs in that it is derived from the mother’s side, whereas gōtra is always derived from the father’s side. A marriage between a boy and girl belonging to the same bali is considered incestuous, as falling within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. It is not at all difficult to find out the bali to which a man or woman belongs, as one can scarcely be found who does not know one’s own bali by rote. And the heads of caste, who preside at every wedding party, and who are also consulted by the elders of the boy or girl before an alliance is formed, are such experts in these matters that they decide at once without reference to any books or rules whether intermarriages between persons brought before them can be lawfully performed or not.” As examples of balis among the Bants, the following may be cited:—Bellathannaya, jaggery.Bhūthiannaya, ashes.Chāliannaya, weaver.Edinnaya, hornet’s nest.Karkadabennai, scorpion.Kayerthannaya (Strychnos Nux-vomica).Kochattabannayya, or Kajjarannayya, jack tree (Artocarpus integrifolia).Koriannaya, fowl.Pathanchithannaya, green peas.Perugadannaya, bandicoot rat.Poyilethannaya, one who removes the evil eye.Puliattannaya, tiger.Rāgithannaya, rāgi (Eleusine Coracana).Infant marriage is not prohibited, but is not common, and both men and girls are usually married after they have reached maturity. There are two forms of marriage, one called kai dhāre for marriages between virgins and bachelors, the other called budu dhāre for the marriage of widows. After a match has been arranged, the formal betrothal, called ponnapāthera or nischaya tambula, takes place. The bridegroom’s relatives and friends proceed in a body on the appointed day to the bride’s house, and are there entertained at a grand dinner, to which the bride’s relatives and friends are also bidden. Subsequently the karnavans (heads) of the two families formally engage to perform the marriage, and plates of betel leaves and areca nuts are exchanged, and the betel and nuts partaken of by the two parties. The actual marriage ceremony is performed at the house of the bride or bridegroom, as may be most convenient. The proceedings commence with the bridegroom seating himself in the marriage pandal, a booth or canopy specially erected for the occasion. He is there shaved by the village barber, and then retires and bathes. This done, both he and the bride are conducted to the pandal by their relations, or sometimes by the village headman. They walk thrice round the seat, and then sit down side by side. The essential and binding part of the ceremony, called dhāre, then takes place. The right hand of the bride being placed over the right hand of the bridegroom, a silver vessel (dhāre gindi) filled with water, with a cocoanut over the mouth and the flower of the areca palm on the cocoanut, is placed on the joined hands. The parents, the managers of the two families, and the village headmen all touch the vessel, which, with the hands of the bridal pair, is moved up and down three times. In certain families the water is poured from thevessel into the united hands of the couple, and this betokens the gift of the bride. This form of gift by pouring water was formerly common, and was not confined to the gift of a bride. It still survives in the marriage ceremonies of various castes, and the name of the Bant ceremony shows that it must once have been universal among them. The bride and bridegroom then receive the congratulations of the guests, who express a hope that the happy couple may become the parents of twelve sons and twelve daughters. An empty plate, and another containing rice, are next placed before the pair, and their friends sprinkle them with rice from the one, and place a small gift, generally four annas, in the other. The bridegroom then makes a gift to the bride. This is called sirdachi, and varies in amount according to the position of the parties. This must be returned to the husband, if his wife leaves him, or if she is divorced for misconduct. The bride is then taken back in procession to her home. A few days later she is again taken to the bridegroom’s house, and must serve her husband with food. He makes another money present to her, and after that the marriage is consummated.According to another account of the marriage ceremony among some Bants, the barber shaves the bridegroom’s face, using cow’s milk instead of water, and touches the bride’s forehead with razor. The bride and bridegroom bathe, and dress up in new clothes. A plank covered with a newly-washed cloth supplied by a washerman, a tray containing raw rice, a lighted lamp, betel leaves and areca nuts, etc., are placed in the pandal. A girl carries a tray on which are placed a lighted lamp, a measure full of raw rice, and betel. She is followed by the bridegroom conducted by her brother, and the bride, led by the bridegroom’s sister. They enterthe pandal and, after going round the articles contained therein five times, sit down on the plank. An elderly woman, belonging to the family of the caste headman, brings a tray containing rice, and places it in front of the couple, over whom she sprinkles a little of the rice. The assembled men and women then place presents of money on the tray, and sprinkle rice over the couple. The right hand of the bride is held by the headman, and her uncle, and laid in that of the bridegroom. A cocoanut is placed over the mouth of a vessel, which is decorated with mango leaves and flowers of the areca palm. The headman and male relations of the bride place this vessel thrice in the hands of the bridal couple. The vessel is subsequently emptied at the foot of a cocoanut tree.The foregoing account shows that the Bant marriage is a good deal more than concubinage. It is indeed as formal a marriage as is to be found among any people in the world, and the freedom of divorce which is allowed cannot deprive it of its essential character. Widows are married with much less formality. The ceremony consists simply of joining the hands of the couple, but, strange to say, a screen is placed between them. All widows are allowed to marry again, but it is, as a rule, only the young women who actually do so. If a widow becomes pregnant, she must marry or suffer loss of caste.The Bants all burn their dead, except in the case of children under seven, and those who have died of leprosy or of epidemic disease such as cholera or small-pox. The funeral pile must consist at least partly of mango wood. On the ninth, eleventh or thirteenth day, people are fed in large numbers, but the Jains now substitute for this a distribution of cocoanuts on the third, fifth,seventh, or ninth day. Once a year—generally in October—a ceremony called agelū is performed for the propitiation of ancestors.From a detailed account of the Bant death ceremonies, I gather that the news of a death is conveyed to the caste people by a Holeya. A carpenter, accompanied by musicians, proceeds to cut down a mango tree for the funeral pyre. The body is bathed, and laid out on a plank. Clad in new clothes, it is conveyed with music to the burning-ground. A barber carries thither a pot containing fire. The corpse is set down near the pyre and divested of the new clothes, which are distributed between a barber, washerman, carpenter, a Billava and Holeya. The pyre is kindled by a Billava, and the mat on which the corpse has been lying is thrown thereon by a son or nephew of the deceased. On the third day the relations go to the burning-ground, and a barber and washerman sprinkle water over the ashes. Some days later, the caste people are invited to attend, and a barber, washerman, and carpenter build up on the spot where the corpse was burnt a lofty structure, made of bamboo and areca palm, in an odd number of tiers, and supported on an odd number of posts. It is decorated with cloths, fruits, tender cocoanuts, sugarcane, flowers, mango leaves, areca palm flowers, etc., and a fence is set up round it. The sons and other relations of the deceased carry to the burning-ground three balls of cooked rice (pinda) dyed with turmeric and tied up in a cloth, some raw rice dyed with turmeric, pieces of green plantain fruit, and pumpkin and a cocoanut. They go thrice round the structure, carrying the various articles in trays on their heads, and deposit them therein. The relations then throw a little of the coloured rice into the structure, and one of the castemen sprinkles water contained in a mango leaf over their hands. After bathing, they return home. The clothes, jewels, etc., of the deceased are laid on a cloth spread inside the house. A piece of turmeric is suspended from the ceiling by a string, and a tray containing water coloured yellow placed beneath it. Round this the females seat themselves. A cocoanut is broken, and a barber sprinkles the water thereof contained in a mango leaf over those assembled. On the following day, various kinds of food are prepared, and placed on leaves, with a piece of new cloth, within a room of the house. The cloth remains there for a year, when it is renewed. The renewal continues until another death occurs in the family.In the following table, the cephalic index of the Bants is compared with that of the Billavas and Shivalli Brāhmans:—Average.Maximum.Minimum.Brahman80.496.472Billava80.191.571Bant7891.270.8The headman among the Bants is generally called Guttinayya, meaning person of the guttu or site. Every village, or group of villages, possesses a guttu, and the Bant who occupies, or holds in possession the house or site set apart as the guttu is the Guttinayya. When this passes to another by sale or inheritance, the office of headman passes with it. It is said that, in some instances, the headmanship has in this way passed to classes other than Bants,e.g., Brāhmans and Jains. In some villages, the headman is, as among some other castes, called Gurikāra, whose appointment is hereditary.A few supplementary notes may be added on the Parivara, Nād, and Māsādika Bants. The Parivaras are confined to the southern taluks of the South Canara district. They may interdine, but may not intermarry with the other section. The rule of inheritance is makkalakattu (in the male line). Brāhman priests are engaged for the various ceremonials, so the Parivaras are more Brāhmanised than the Nād or Māsādika Bants. The Parivaras may resort to the wells used by Brāhmans, and they consequently claim superiority over the other sections. Among the Nād Bants, no marriage badge is tied on the neck of the bride. At a Parivara marriage, after the dhāre ceremony, the bridegroom ties a gold bead, called dhāre mani, on the neck of the bride. The remarriage of widows is not in vogue. In connection with the death ceremonies, a car is not, as among the Nād and Māsādika sections, set up over the mound (dhūpe). On the eleventh day, the spreading of a cloth on the mound for offerings of food must be done by Nekkāras, who wash clothes for Billavas.The Nād or Nādava and Māsādika Bants follow the aliya santāna law of succession, and intermarriage is permitted between the two sections. The names of the balis, which have already been given, are common among the Māsādikas, and do not apply to the Nāds, among whom different sept names occur,e.g., Honne, Shetti, Koudichi, etc. Elaborate death ceremonies are only performed if the deceased was old, or a respected member of the community. The corpse is generally cremated in one of the rice-fields belonging to the family. After the funeral, the male members of the family return home, and place a vessel containing water and light in a room. One or two women mustremain in this room, and the light must be kept burning until the bojja, or final death ceremonies, are over. The water in the vessel must be renewed twice daily. At the final ceremonies, a feast is given to the castemen, and in some places, the headman insists on the people of the house of mourning giving him a jewel as a pledge that the bojja will be performed on the ninth, eleventh, or thirteenth day. The headman visits the house on the previous day, and, after examination of the provisions, helps in cutting up vegetables, etc. On the bojja day, copper and silver coins, and small pieces of gold, are buried or sown in the field in which the ceremony is performed. This is called hanabiththodu. The lofty structure, called gurigi or upparige, is set up over the dhūpe or ashes heaped up into a mound, or in the field in which the body was cremated, only in the event of the deceased being a person of importance. In some places, two kinds of structure are used, one called gurigi, composed of several tiers, for males, and the other called dēlagūdu, consisting of a single tier, for females. Devil-dancers are engaged, and the commonest kōla performed by them is the eru kōla, or man and hobby-horse. In the room containing the vessel of water, four sticks are planted in the ground, and tied together. Over the sticks a cloth is placed, and the vessel of water placed beneath it. A bit of string is tied to the ceiling, and a piece of turmeric or a gold ring is attached to the end of it, and suspended so as to touch the water in the vessel. This is called nīr neralu (shadow in water), and seems to be a custom among various Tulu castes. After the bojja ceremony, all those who are under death pollution stand in two rows. A Madavali (washerman) touches them with acloth, and a Kēlasi (barber) sprinkles water over them. In this manner, they are freed from pollution.The most common title among the Bants is Chetti or Setti, but many others occur,e.g., Heggade, Nāyaka, Bangēra, Rai, Ballālaru, etc.Bārang Jhodia.—A sub-division of Poroja.Bardēshkar(people of twelve countries).—Some families among Konkani Brāhmans go by this name.Bāriki.—Bāriki is the name for village watchmen in Southern Ganjam, whose duty it further is to guide the traveller on the march from place to place. In the Bellary Manual, Bārika is given as the name for Canarese Kabbēras, who are village servants, who keep the village chāvadi (caste meeting-house) clean, look after the wants of officials halting in the village, and perform various other duties. In the Census Report, 1901, the Bārikas are said to be usually Bōyas. The Bārika of Mysore is defined by Mr. L. Rice as37“a menial among the village servants; a deputy talāri, who is employed to watch the crops from the growing crop to the granary.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Bellary district, that “in the middle of the threshold of nearly all the gateways of the ruined fortifications round the Bellary villages will be noticed a roughly cylindrical or conical stone, something like a lingam. This is the boddu-rāyi, literally the navel stone, and so the middle stone. It was planted there when the fort was built, and is affectionately regarded as being the boundary of the village site. Once a year, in May, just before the sowing season begins, a ceremony takes place in connection with it. Reverence is first made to the bullocksof the village, and in the evening they are driven through the gateway past the boddu-rāyi with tom-toms, flutes, and all kinds of music. The Bārike next does pūja (worship) to the stone, and then a string of mango leaves is tied across the gateway above it. The villagers now form sides, one party trying to drive the bullocks through the gate, and the other trying to keep them out. The greatest uproar and confusion naturally follow, and, in the midst of the turmoil, some bullock or other eventually breaks through the guardians of the gate, and gains the village. If that first bullock is a red one, the red grains on the red soils will flourish in the coming season. If he is white, white crops like cotton and white cholam will prosper. If he is red-and-white, both kinds will do well. When the rains fail, and, in any case, on the first full moon in September, rude human figures drawn on the ground with powdered charcoal may be seen at cross-roads and along big thoroughfares. They represent Jōkumāra the rain-god, and are made by the Bārikes—a class of village servants, who are usually of the Gaurimakkalu sub-division of the Kabbēras. The villagers give the artists some small remuneration, and believe that luck comes to those who pass over the figures.”Bārike.—A title of Gaudos and other Oriya castes.Barrellu(buffaloes).—An exogamous sept of Kāpu.Bāsala.—Recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as Telugu beggars and soothsayers in Vizagapatam. The word is apparently a corruption of Bāsa-vālu, a sage. The Bāsa-vālu pretend to be messengers of Indra, the chief of the Dēvatas, and prognosticate coming events.Basari(fig tree).—A gōtra of Kurni.Bāsava Golla.—A name for certain Koyis of the Godāvari district, whose grandfathers had a quarrel withsome of their neighbours, and separated from them. The name Bāsava is said to be derived from bhāsha, a language, as these Koyis speak a different language from the true Gollas.38In like manner, Bāsa Kondhs are those who speak their proper language, in contradistinction to those who speak Oriya, or Oriya mixed with Kui.Basavi.—SeeDēva-dāsi.Basiya Korono.—A sub-division of Korono.Basruvōgaru(basru, belly).—An exogamous sept of Gauda.Baththāla(rice).—An exogamous sept of Kamma.Batlu(cup).—An exogamous sept of Kuruba.Bauri.—There are found in the Madras Presidency nomad gangs of Bauris or Bāwariyas, who are described39as “one of the worst criminal tribes of India. The sphere of their operations extends throughout the length and breadth of the country. They not only commit robberies, burglaries and thefts, but also practice the art of manufacturing and passing counterfeit coin. They keep with them a small quantity of wheat and sandal seeds in a small tin or brass case, which they call Dēvakadana or God’s grain, and a tuft of peacock’s feathers, all in a bundle. They are very superstitious, and do not embark on any enterprise without first ascertaining by omens whether it will be attended with success or not. This they do by taking at random a small quantity of grains out of their Dēvakadana and counting the number of grains, the omen being considered good or bad according as the number of seeds is odd or even. For a detailed record of the history ofthis criminal class, and the methods employed in the performance of criminal acts, I would refer the reader to the accounts given by Mr. Paupa Rao40and Mr. W. Crooke.41Bāvāji.—The Bāvājis are Bairāgi or Gosāyi beggars, who travel about the country. They are known by various names,e.g., Bairāgi, Sādu, etc.Bāvuri.—The Bāvuris, or Bauris, are a low class of Oriya basket-makers, living in Ganjam, and are more familiarly known as Khodālo. They are a polluting class, living in separate quarters, and occupy a position lower than the Sāmantiyas, but higher than the Kondras, Dandāsis, and Haddis. They claim that palanquin (dhooly or dūli) bearing is their traditional occupation, and consequently call themselves Bōyi. “According to one story,” Risley writes,42“they were degraded for attempting to steal food from the banquet of the gods; another professes to trace them back to a mythical ancestor named Bāhak Rishi (the bearer of burdens), and tells how, while returning from a marriage procession, they sold the palanquin they had been hired to carry, got drunk on the proceeds, and assaulted their guru (religious preceptor), who cursed them for the sacrilege, and condemned them to rank thenceforward among the lowest castes of the community.” The Bāvuris are apparently divided into two endogamous sections, viz., Dulia and Khandi. The former regard themselves as superior to the latter, and prefer to be called Khodālo. Some of these have given up eating beef, call themselves Dāsa Khodālos, and claim descent from oneBalliga Doss, a famous Bāvuri devotee, who is said to have worked wonders, analogous to those of Nandan of the Paraiyan community. To this section the caste priests belong. At Russelkonda, a woman, when asked if she was a Bāvuri, replied that the caste is so called by others, but that its real name is Khodālo. Others, in reply to a question whether they belonged to the Khandi section, became angry, and said that the Khandis are inferior, because they eat frogs.The Bāvuris gave the name of two gōtras, saptha bhavunia and nāga, which are said to be exogamous. The former offer food to the gods on seven leaves of the white gourd melon,Benincasa cerifera(kokkara), and the latter on jak (Artocarpus integrifolia: panasa) leaves. All over the Oriya country there is a general belief that house-names or bamsams are foreign to the Oriya castes, and only possessed by the Telugus. But some genuine Oriya castes,e.g., Haddis, Dandāsis and Bhondāris, have exogamous bamsams.For every group of villages (muttah), the Bāvuris apparently have a headman called Bēhara, who is assisted by Naikos or Dolo Bēharas, or, in some places, Dondias or Porichas, who hold sway over a smaller number of villages. Each village has its own headman, called Bhollobhaya (good brother), to whose notice all irregularities are brought. These are either settled by himself, or referred to the Bēhara and Naiko. In some villages, in addition to the Bhollobhaya, there is a caste servant called Dangua or Dogara. For serious offences, a council-meeting is convened by the Bēhara, and attended by the Bhollobhayas, Naikos, and a few leading members of the community. The meeting is held in an open plain outside the village. Once in two orthree years, a council-meeting, called mondolo, is held, at which various matters are discussed, and decided. The expenses of meetings are defrayed by the inhabitants of the villages in which they take place. Among the most important matters to be decided by tribunals are adultery, eating with lower castes, the re-admission of convicts into the caste, etc. Punishment takes the form of a fine, and trial by ordeal is apparently not resorted to. A man, who is convicted of committing adultery, or eating with a member of a lower caste, is received back into the caste on payment of the fine. A woman, who has been proved guilty of such offences, is not so taken back. It is said that, when a member of a higher caste commits adultery with a Bāvuri woman, he is sometimes received into the Bāvuri caste. The Bēhara receives a small fee annually from each village or family, and also a small present of money for each marriage.Girls are married either before or after puberty. A man may marry his maternal uncle’s, but not his paternal aunt’s daughter. At an adult marriage, the festivities last for four days, whereas, at an infant marriage, they are extended over seven days. When a young man’s parents have selected a girl for him, they consult a Brāhman, and, if he decides that the marriage will be auspicious, they proceed to the girl’s home, and ask that a day be fixed for the betrothal. On the appointed day the amount of money, which is to be paid by the bridegroom-elect for jewels, etc., is fixed. One or two new cloths must be given to the girl’s grandmother, and the man’s party must announce the number of feasts they intend to give to the castemen. If the family is poor, the feasts are mentioned, but do not actually take place. The marriage ceremony is always celebrated at night. On the evening of the day prior thereto, the bride andbridegroom’s people proceed to the temple of the village goddess (Tākurāni), and, on their way home, go to seven houses of members of their own or some higher caste, and ask them to give them water, which is poured into a small vessel. This vessel is taken home, and hung over the bedi (marriage dais). The water is used by the bride and bridegroom on the following morning for bathing. On the marriage day, the bridegroom proceeds to the bride’s village, and is met on the way by her party, and escorted by his brother-in-law to the dais. The Bhollobhaya enquires whether the bride’s party have received everything as arranged, and, when he has been assured on this point, the bride is brought to the dais by her maternal uncle. She carries with her in her hands a little salt and rice; and, after throwing these over the bridegroom, she sits by his side. The grandfathers of the contracting couple, or a priest called Dhiyāni, officiate. Their palms are placed together, and the hands united by a string dyed with turmeric. The union of the hands is called hasthagonti, and is the binding portion of the ceremony. Turmeric water is poured over the hands seven times from a chank or sankha shell. Seven married women then throw over the heads of the couple a mixture ofZizyphus Jujuba(borkolipathro) leaves, rice smeared with turmeric, andCynodon Dactylon(dhūba) culms. This rite is called bhondaivaro, and is performed at all auspicious ceremonies. The fingers of the bride and bridegroom are then linked together, and they are led by the wife of the bride’s brother seven times round the bedi. The priest then proclaims that the soot can soon be wiped off the cooking-pot, but the connection brought about by the marriage is enduring, and relationship is secured for seven generations. The pair are taken indoors, and fed. Theremaining days of the marriage ceremonies are given up to feasting. The remarriage of widows is permitted. A widow is expected to marry the younger brother of her deceased husband, or, with his permission, may marry whom she likes.When a girl attains maturity, she is seated on a new mat, andZizyphus Jujubaleaves are thrown over her. This ceremony is sometimes repeated daily for six days, during which sweets, etc., are given to the girl, and women who bring presents are fed. On the seventh day, the girl is taken to a tank (pond), and bathed.The dead are either buried or burnt. The corpse is, at the funeral, borne in the hands, or on a bier, by four men. Soon after the village boundary has been crossed, the widow of the deceased throws rice over the eyes of the corpse, and also a little fire, after taking it three times round. She usually carries with her a pot and ladle, which she throws away. If an elderly woman dies, these rites are performed by her daughter-in-law. At the burial-ground, the corpse is taken seven times round the grave, and, as it is lowered into it, those present say “Oh! trees, Oh! sky, Oh! earth, we are laying him in. It is not our fault.” When the grave has been filled in, the figures of a man and woman are drawn on it, and all throw earth over it, saying “You were living with us; now you have left us. Do not trouble the people.” On their return home, the mourners sprinkle cowdung water about the house and over their feet, and toddy is partaken of. On the following day, all the old pots are thrown away, and the agnates eat rice cooked with margosa (Melia Azadirachta) leaves. Food is offered to the dead person, either at the burial-ground or in the backyard of the house. On the tenth day, the Dhiyani,as the priest is called, is sent for, and arrives with his drum (dhiyani). A small hut is erected on a tank bund (embankment), and food cooked seven times, and offered seven times on seven fragments of pots. A new cloth is spread, and on it food, fruits, a chank shell, etc., are placed, and offered to the deceased. The various articles are put into a new pot, and the son, going into the water up to his neck, throws the pot into the air, and breaks it. The celebrants of the rite then return to the house, and stand in a row in front thereof. They are there purified by means of milk smeared over their hands by the Dhiyani. On the twelfth day, food is offered on twelve leaves.The Bāvuris do not worship Jagannāthāswāmi, or other of the higher deities, but reverence their ancestors and the village goddesses or Tākurānis. Like other Oriya classes, the Bāvuris name their children on the twenty-first day. Opprobrious names are common among them,e.g., Ogādu (dirty fellow), Kangāli (wretched fellow), Haddia (Haddi, or sweeper caste).Bēdar or Bōya.—“Throughout the hills,” Buchanan writes,43“northward from Capaladurga, are many cultivated spots, in which, during Tippoo’s government, were settled many Baydaru or hunters, who received twelve pagodas (£4 5s.) a year, and served as irregular troops whenever required. Being accustomed to pursue tigers and deer in the woods, they were excellent marksmen with their match-locks, and indefatigable in following their prey; which, in the time of war, was the life and property of every helpless creature that came in their way. During the wars of Hyder and his son, these men were chief instruments in the terrible depredationscommitted in the lower Carnatic. They were also frequently employed with success against the Poligars (feudal chiefs), whose followers were of a similar description.” In the Gazetteer of the Anantapur district it is noted that “the Bōyas are the old fighting caste of this part of the country, whose exploits are so often recounted in the history books. The Poligars’ forces, and Haidar Ali’s famous troops were largely recruited from these people, and they still retain a keen interest in sport and manly exercises.”In his notes on the Bōyas, which Mr. N. E. Q. Mainwaring has kindly placed at my disposal, he writes as follows. “Although, until quite recently, many a Bōya served in the ranks of our Native army, being entered in the records thereof either under his caste title of Naidu, or under the heading of Gentu,44which was largely used in old day military records, yet this congenial method of earning a livelihood has now been swept away by a Government order, which directs that in future no Telegas shall be enlisted into the Indian army. That the Bōyas were much prized as fighting men in the stirring times of the eighteenth century is spoken to in the contemporaneous history of Colonel Wilks.45He speaks of the brave armies of the Poligars of Chitteldroog, who belonged to the Beder or Bōya race in the year 1755. Earlier, in 1750, Hyder Ali, who was then only a Naik in the service of the Mysore Rāja, used with great effect his select corps of Beder peons at the battle of Ginjee. Five years after thisbattle, when Hyder was rising to great eminence, he augmented his Beder peons, and used them as scouts for the purpose of ascertaining the whereabouts of his enemies, and for poisoning with the juice of the milk-hedge (Euphorbia Tirucalli) all wells in use by them, or in their line of march. The historian characterises them as being ‘brave and faithful thieves.’ In 1751, the most select army of Morari Row of Gooty consisted chiefly of Beder peons, and the accounts of their deeds in the field, as well as their defence of Gooty fort, which only fell after the meanness of device had been resorted to, prove their bravery in times gone by beyond doubt. There are still a number of old weapons to be found amongst the Bōyas, consisting of swords, daggers, spears, and matchlocks. None appear to be purely Bōya weapons, but they seem to have assumed the weapons of either Muhammadans or Hindus, according to which race held sway at the time. In some districts, there are still Bōya Poligars, but, as a rule, they are poor, and unable to maintain any position. Generally, the Bōyas live at peace with their neighbours, occasionally only committing a grave dacoity (robbery).46“In the Kurnool district, they have a bad name, and many are on the police records as habitual thieves and housebreakers. They seldom stoop to lesser offences. Some are carpenters, others blacksmiths who manufacture all sorts of agricultural implements. Some, again, are engaged as watchmen, and others make excellent snares for fish out of bamboo. But the majority of them are agriculturists, and most of them work on their own putta lands. They are now a hard-working, industrious people, who have become thrifty by dint of their industry,and whose former predatory habits are being forgotten. Each village, or group of villages, submits to the authority of a headman, who is generally termed the Naidu, less commonly Dora as chieftain. In some parts of Kurnool, the headmen are called Simhasana Bōyas. The headman presides at all functions, and settles, with the assistance of the elders, any disputes that may arise in the community regarding division of property, adultery, and other matters. The headman has the power to inflict fines, the amount of which is regulated by the status and wealth of the defaulter. But it is always arranged that the penalty shall be sufficient to cover the expense of feeding the panchayatdars (members of council), and leave a little over to be divided between the injured party and the headman. In this way, the headman gets paid for his services, and practically fixes his own remuneration.”It is stated in the Manual of the Bellary district that “of the various Hindu castes in Bellary, the Bōyas (called in Canarese Bēdars, Byēdas, or Byādās) are far the strongest numerically. Many of the Poligars whom Sir Thomas Munro found in virtual possession of the country when it was added to the Company belonged to this caste, and their irregular levies, and also a large proportion of Haidar’s formidable force, were of the same breed. Harpanahalli was the seat of one of the most powerful Poligars in the district in the eighteenth century. The founder of the family was a Bōya taliāri, who, on the subversion of the Vijayanagar dynasty, seized on two small districts near Harpanahalli. The Bōyas are perhaps the only people in the district who still retain any aptitude for manly sports. They are now for the most part cultivators and herdsmen or are engaged under Government as constables, peons, village watchmen(taliāris), and so forth. Their community provides an instructive example of the growth of caste sub-divisions. Both the Telugu-speaking Bōyas and the Canarese-speaking Bēdars are split into the two main divisions of Ūru or village men, and Myāsa or grass-land men, and each of these divisions is again sub-divided into a number of exogamous Bedagas. Four of the best known of these sub-divisions are Yemmalavaru or buffalo-men; Mandalavaru or men of the herd; Pūlavaru or flower-men, and Mīnalavaru or fish-men. They are in no way totemistic. Curiously enough, each Bedagu has its own particular god, to which its members pay special reverence. But these Bedagas bear the same names among both the Bōyas and the Bēdars, and also among both the Ūru and Myāsa divisions of both Bōyas and Bēdars. It thus seems clear that, at some distant period, all the Bōyas and all the Bēdars must have belonged to one homogeneous caste. At present, though Ūru Bōyas will marry with Ūru Bēdars and Myāsa Bōyas with Myāsa Bēdars, there is no intermarriage between Ūrus and Myāsas, whether they be Bōyas or Bēdars. Even if Ūrus and Myāsas dine together, they sit in different rows, each division by themselves. Again, the Ūrus (whether Bōyas or Bēdars) will eat chicken and drink alcohol, but the Myāsas will not touch a fowl or any form of strong drink, and are so strict in this last matter that they will not even sit on mats made of the leaf of the date-palm, the tree which in Bellary provides all the toddy. The Ūrus, moreover, celebrate their marriages with the ordinary ceremonial of the hālu-kamba or milk-post, and the surge, or bathing of the happy pair; the bride sits on a flour-grinding stone, and the bridegroom stands on a basket full of cholam (millet), and they call in Brāhmans to officiate. But the Myāsas have a simplerritual, which omits most of these points, and dispenses with the Brāhman. Other differences are that the Ūru women wear ravikkais or tight-fitting bodices, while the Myāsas tuck them under their waist-string. Both divisions eat beef, and both have a hereditary headman called the ejamān, and hereditary Dāsaris who act as their priests.”
Kambla Buffalo Race.Kambla Buffalo Race.The Bants are fond of out-door sports, football and buffalo-racing being amongst their favourite amusements. But the most popular of all is cock-fighting. Every Bant, who is not a Jain, takes an interest in this sport, and large assemblages of cocks are found at every fair and festival throughout South Canara. “The outsider,” it has been said,35“cannot fail to be struck with the tremendous excitement that attends a village fair in South Canara. Large numbers of cocks are displayed for sale, and groups of excited people may be seen huddled together, bending down with intense eagerness to watch every detail in the progress of a combat between two celebrated village game-cocks.” Cock fights on an elaborate scale take place on the day after theDīpāvali, Sankaranthi or Vinayakachathurthi, and Gokalāshtami festivals, outside the village boundary. At Hiriadaka, in October, 1907, more than a hundred birds were tethered by the leg to the scrub jungle composed of the evergreen shrubIxora coccinea, or carried in the arms of their owners or youngsters. Only males, from the town and surrounding villages, were witnesses of the spectacle. The tethered birds, if within range of each other, excited by the constant crowing and turmoil, indulged in an impromptu fight. Grains of rice and water were poured into the mouths and over the heads of the birds before the fight, and after each round. The birds were armed with cunningly devised steel spurs, constituting a battery of variously curved and sinuous weapons. It is believed that the Bhūta (demon) is appeased, if the blood from the wounds drops on the ground. The men, whose duty it is to separate the birds at the end of a round, sometimes receive nasty wounds from the spurs. The tail feathers of a wounded bird are lifted up, and a palm leaf fan or towel is waved to and fro over the cloacal orifice to revive it. The owner of a victorious bird becomes the possessor of the vanquished bird, dead or alive. At an exhibition of the products of South Canara, during a recent visit of the Governor of Madras to Mangalore, a collection of spurs was exhibited in the class “household implements.”Kambla Racing Buffaloes.Kambla Racing Buffaloes.For the following note on buffalo races, I am indebted to Mr. H. O. D. Harding. “This is a sport that has grown up among a race of cultivators of wet land. It is, I believe, peculiar to South Canara, where all the cultivation worth mentioning is wet. The Bants and Jains, and other landowners of position, own and run buffaloes, and the Billava, or toddy drawer, has also entered the racing world. Every rich Bant keeps hiskambla field consecrated to buffalo-racing, and his pair of racing buffaloes, costing from Rs. 150 to Rs. 500, are splendid animals; and, except for an occasional plough-drawing at the beginning of the cultivation season, are used for no purpose all the year, except racing. The racing is for no prize or stakes, and there is no betting, starter, judge, or winning post. Each pair of buffaloes runs the course alone, and is judged by the assembled crowd for pace and style, and, most important of all, the height and breadth of the splash which they make. Most people know the common levelling plank used by the ryots (cultivators) all over India to level the wet field after ploughing. It is a plank some 4 or 5 feet long by 1 or 1½ feet broad, and on it the driver stands to give it weight, and the buffaloes pull it over the mud of a flooded rice-field. This is the prototype of the buffalo-racing car, and any day during the cultivating season in the Tulu country one may see two boys racing for the love of the sport, as they drive their levelling boards. From this the racing car has been specialised, and, if a work of art for its own purpose, is not a car on which any one could or would wish to travel far. The leveller of utility is cut down to a plank about 1½ by 1 foot, sometimes handsomely carved, on which is fixed a gaily decorated wooden stool about 6 inches high and 10 inches across each way, hollowed out on the top, and just big enough to afford good standing for one foot. In the plank, on each side, are holes to let the mud and water through. The plank is fixed to a pole, which is tied to the buffalo’s yoke. The buffaloes are decorated with coloured jhūls and marvellous head-pieces of brass and silver (sometimes bearing the emblems of the sun and moon), and ropes which make a sort of bridle. The driver, stripping himself to the necessary minimum ofgarments, mounts, while some of his friends cling, like ants struggling round a dead beetle, to the buffaloes. When he is fairly up, they let go, and the animals start. The course is a wet rice-field, about 150 yards long, full of mud and water. All round are hundreds, or perhaps thousands of people, including Pariahs who dance in groups in the mud, play stick-game, and beat drums. In front of the galloping buffaloes the water is clear and still, throwing a powerful reflection of them as they gallop down the course, raising a perfect tornado of mud and water. The driver stands with one foot on the stool, and one on the pole of the car. He holds a whip aloft in one hand, and one of the buffaloes’ tails in the other. He drives without reins, with nothing but a waggling tail to hold on to and steer by. Opening his mouth wide, he shouts for all he is worth, while, to all appearances, a deluge of mud and water goes down his throat. So he comes down the course, the plank on which he stands throwing up a sort of Prince of Wales’ feathers of mud and water round him. The stance on the plank is no easy matter, and not a few men come to grief, but it is soft falling in the slush. Marks are given for pace, style, sticking to the plank, and throwing up the biggest and widest splash. Sometimes a kind of gallows, perhaps twenty feet high, is erected on the course, and there is a round of applause if the splash reaches up to or above it. Sometimes the buffaloes bolt, scatter the crowd, and get away into the young rice. At the end of the course, the driver jumps off with a parting smack at his buffaloes, which run up the slope of the field, and stop of themselves in what may be called the paddock. At a big meeting perhaps a hundred pairs, brought from all over the Tulu country, will compete, and the big men always send theirbuffaloes to the races headed by the local band. The roads are alive with horns and tom-toms for several days. The proceedings commence with a procession, which is not infrequently headed by a couple of painted dolls in an attitude suggestive of that reproductiveness, which the races really give thanks for. They are a sort of harvest festival, before the second or sugge crop is sown, and are usually held in October and November. Devils must be propitiated, and the meeting opens with a devil dance. A painted, grass-crowned devil dancer, riding a hobby-horse, proceeds with music round the kambla field. Then comes the buffalo procession, and the races commence. At a big meeting near Mangalore, the two leading devil dancers were dressed up in masks, and coat and trousers of blue mission cloth, and one had the genitalia represented by a long piece of blue cloth tipped with red, and enormous testes. Buffaloes, young and old, trained and untrained, compete, some without the plank attached to them, and others with planks but without drivers. Accidents sometimes happen, owing to the animals breaking away among the crowd. On one occasion, a man who was in front of a pair of buffaloes which were just about to start failed to jump clear of them. Catching hold of the yoke, he hung on to it by his hands, and was carried right down the course, and was landed safely at the other end. If he had dropped, he would have fallen among four pairs of hoofs, not to mention the planks, and would probably have been brained. It is often a case of owners up, and the sons and nephews of big Bants, worth perhaps Rs. 10,000 a year, drive the teams.”To the above account, I may add a few notes made at a buffalo race-meeting near Udipi, at which I was present. Each group of buffaloes, as they went up the track tothe starting-point, was preceded by the Koraga band playing on drum, fife and cymbals, Holeyas armed with staves and dancing, and a man holding a flag (nishāni). Sometimes, in addition to the flag, there is a pakkē or spear on the end of a bamboo covered with strips of cloth, or a makara torana,i.e., festooned cloths between two bamboos. The two last are permitted only if the buffaloes belong to a Bant or Brāhman, not if they are the property of a Billava. At the end of the races, the Ballāla chief, in whose field they had taken place, retired in procession, headed by a man carrying his banner, which, during the races, had been floating on the top of a long bamboo pole at the far end of the track. He was followed by the Koraga band, and the Holeyas attached to him, armed with clubs, and dancing a step dance amid discordant noises. Two Nalkes (devil-dancers), dressed up in their professional garb, and a torch-bearer also joined in the procession, in the rear of which came the Ballāla beneath a decorated umbrella. In every village there are rākshasas (demons), called Kambla-asura, who preside over the fields. The races are held to propitiate them, and, if they are omitted, it is believed that there will be a failure of the crop. According to some, Kambla-asura is the brother of Mahēshasura, the buffalo-headed giant, from whom Mysore receives its name. The Koragas sit up through the night before the Kambla day, performing a ceremony called panikkuluni, or sitting under the dew. They sing songs to the accompaniment of the band, about their devil Nīcha, and offer toddy and a rice-pudding boiled in a large earthen pot, which is broken so that the pudding remains as a solid mass. This pudding is called kandēl addē, or pot pudding. On the morning of the races, the Holeyas scatter manure over the field, andplough it. On the following day, the seedlings are planted, without, as in ordinary cases, any ploughing. To propitiate various devils, the days following the races are devoted to cock-fighting. The Kamblas, in different places, have various names derived from the village deity, the chief village devil, or the village itself,e.g., Janardhana Dēvara, Daivala, or Udiyavar. The young men, who have the management of the buffaloes, are called Bannangayi Gurikara (half-ripe cocoanut masters) as they have the right of taking tender cocoanuts, as well as beaten rice to give them physical strength, without the special permission of their landlord. At the village of Vandar, the races take place in a dry field, which has been ploughed, and beaten to break up the clods of earth. For this reason they are called podi (powder) Kambla.A pair of buffaloes, belonging to the field in which the races take place, should enter the field first, and a breach of this observance leads to discussion and quarrels. On one occasion, a dispute arose between two Bants in connection with the question of precedence. One of them brought his own pair of buffaloes, and the other a borrowed pair. If the latter had brought his own animals, he would have had precedence over the former. But, as his animals were borrowed, precedence was given to the man who brought his own buffaloes. This led to a dispute, and the races were not commenced until the delicate point at issue was decided. In some places, a long pole, called pūkāre, decorated with flags, flowers, and festoons of leaves, is set up in the Kambla field, sometimes on a platform. Billavas are in charge of this pole, which is worshipped, throughout the races, and others may not touch it.Pūkāre Post at Kambla Buffalo Races.Pūkāre Post at Kambla Buffalo Races.Fines inflicted by the Bant caste council are, I am informed, spent in the celebration of a temple festival.In former days, those found guilty by the council were beaten with tamarind switches, made to stand exposed to the sun, or big red ants were thrown over their bodies. Sometimes, to establish the innocence of an accused person, he had to take a piece of red-hot iron (axe, etc.) in his hand, and give it to his accuser.At a puberty ceremony among some Bants the girl sits in the courtyard of her house on five unhusked cocoanuts covered with the bamboo cylinder which is used for storing paddy. Women place four pots filled with water, and containing betel leaves and nuts, round the girl, and empty the contents over her head. She is then secluded in an outhouse. The women are entertained with a feast, which must include fowl and fish curry. The cocoanuts are given to a washerwoman. On the fourth day, the girl is bathed, and received back at the house. Beaten rice, and rice flour mixed with jaggery (crude sugar) are served out to those assembled. The girl is kept gōsha (secluded) for a time, and fed up with generous diet.Under the aliya santāna system of inheritance, the High Court has ruled that there is no marriage within the meaning of the Penal Code. But, though divorce and remarriage are permitted to women, there are formal rules and ceremonies observed in connection with them, and amongst the well-to-do classes divorce is not looked upon as respectable, and is not frequent. The fictitious marriage prevailing amongst the Nāyars is unknown among the Bants, and a wife also usually leaves the family house, and resides at her husband’s, unless she occupies so senior a position in her own family as to make it desirable that she should live on the family estate.The Bants are divided into a number of balis (exogamous septs), which are traced in the female line,i.e., a boy belongs to his mother’s, not to his father’s bali. Children belonging to the same bali cannot marry, and the prohibition extends to certain allied (koodu) balis. Moreover, a man cannot marry his father’s brother’s daughter, though she belongs to a different bali. In a memorandum by Mr. M. Mundappa Bangera,36it is stated that “bali in aliya santāna families corresponds to gōtra of the Brāhmins governed by Hindu law, but differs in that it is derived from the mother’s side, whereas gōtra is always derived from the father’s side. A marriage between a boy and girl belonging to the same bali is considered incestuous, as falling within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. It is not at all difficult to find out the bali to which a man or woman belongs, as one can scarcely be found who does not know one’s own bali by rote. And the heads of caste, who preside at every wedding party, and who are also consulted by the elders of the boy or girl before an alliance is formed, are such experts in these matters that they decide at once without reference to any books or rules whether intermarriages between persons brought before them can be lawfully performed or not.” As examples of balis among the Bants, the following may be cited:—Bellathannaya, jaggery.Bhūthiannaya, ashes.Chāliannaya, weaver.Edinnaya, hornet’s nest.Karkadabennai, scorpion.Kayerthannaya (Strychnos Nux-vomica).Kochattabannayya, or Kajjarannayya, jack tree (Artocarpus integrifolia).Koriannaya, fowl.Pathanchithannaya, green peas.Perugadannaya, bandicoot rat.Poyilethannaya, one who removes the evil eye.Puliattannaya, tiger.Rāgithannaya, rāgi (Eleusine Coracana).Infant marriage is not prohibited, but is not common, and both men and girls are usually married after they have reached maturity. There are two forms of marriage, one called kai dhāre for marriages between virgins and bachelors, the other called budu dhāre for the marriage of widows. After a match has been arranged, the formal betrothal, called ponnapāthera or nischaya tambula, takes place. The bridegroom’s relatives and friends proceed in a body on the appointed day to the bride’s house, and are there entertained at a grand dinner, to which the bride’s relatives and friends are also bidden. Subsequently the karnavans (heads) of the two families formally engage to perform the marriage, and plates of betel leaves and areca nuts are exchanged, and the betel and nuts partaken of by the two parties. The actual marriage ceremony is performed at the house of the bride or bridegroom, as may be most convenient. The proceedings commence with the bridegroom seating himself in the marriage pandal, a booth or canopy specially erected for the occasion. He is there shaved by the village barber, and then retires and bathes. This done, both he and the bride are conducted to the pandal by their relations, or sometimes by the village headman. They walk thrice round the seat, and then sit down side by side. The essential and binding part of the ceremony, called dhāre, then takes place. The right hand of the bride being placed over the right hand of the bridegroom, a silver vessel (dhāre gindi) filled with water, with a cocoanut over the mouth and the flower of the areca palm on the cocoanut, is placed on the joined hands. The parents, the managers of the two families, and the village headmen all touch the vessel, which, with the hands of the bridal pair, is moved up and down three times. In certain families the water is poured from thevessel into the united hands of the couple, and this betokens the gift of the bride. This form of gift by pouring water was formerly common, and was not confined to the gift of a bride. It still survives in the marriage ceremonies of various castes, and the name of the Bant ceremony shows that it must once have been universal among them. The bride and bridegroom then receive the congratulations of the guests, who express a hope that the happy couple may become the parents of twelve sons and twelve daughters. An empty plate, and another containing rice, are next placed before the pair, and their friends sprinkle them with rice from the one, and place a small gift, generally four annas, in the other. The bridegroom then makes a gift to the bride. This is called sirdachi, and varies in amount according to the position of the parties. This must be returned to the husband, if his wife leaves him, or if she is divorced for misconduct. The bride is then taken back in procession to her home. A few days later she is again taken to the bridegroom’s house, and must serve her husband with food. He makes another money present to her, and after that the marriage is consummated.According to another account of the marriage ceremony among some Bants, the barber shaves the bridegroom’s face, using cow’s milk instead of water, and touches the bride’s forehead with razor. The bride and bridegroom bathe, and dress up in new clothes. A plank covered with a newly-washed cloth supplied by a washerman, a tray containing raw rice, a lighted lamp, betel leaves and areca nuts, etc., are placed in the pandal. A girl carries a tray on which are placed a lighted lamp, a measure full of raw rice, and betel. She is followed by the bridegroom conducted by her brother, and the bride, led by the bridegroom’s sister. They enterthe pandal and, after going round the articles contained therein five times, sit down on the plank. An elderly woman, belonging to the family of the caste headman, brings a tray containing rice, and places it in front of the couple, over whom she sprinkles a little of the rice. The assembled men and women then place presents of money on the tray, and sprinkle rice over the couple. The right hand of the bride is held by the headman, and her uncle, and laid in that of the bridegroom. A cocoanut is placed over the mouth of a vessel, which is decorated with mango leaves and flowers of the areca palm. The headman and male relations of the bride place this vessel thrice in the hands of the bridal couple. The vessel is subsequently emptied at the foot of a cocoanut tree.The foregoing account shows that the Bant marriage is a good deal more than concubinage. It is indeed as formal a marriage as is to be found among any people in the world, and the freedom of divorce which is allowed cannot deprive it of its essential character. Widows are married with much less formality. The ceremony consists simply of joining the hands of the couple, but, strange to say, a screen is placed between them. All widows are allowed to marry again, but it is, as a rule, only the young women who actually do so. If a widow becomes pregnant, she must marry or suffer loss of caste.The Bants all burn their dead, except in the case of children under seven, and those who have died of leprosy or of epidemic disease such as cholera or small-pox. The funeral pile must consist at least partly of mango wood. On the ninth, eleventh or thirteenth day, people are fed in large numbers, but the Jains now substitute for this a distribution of cocoanuts on the third, fifth,seventh, or ninth day. Once a year—generally in October—a ceremony called agelū is performed for the propitiation of ancestors.From a detailed account of the Bant death ceremonies, I gather that the news of a death is conveyed to the caste people by a Holeya. A carpenter, accompanied by musicians, proceeds to cut down a mango tree for the funeral pyre. The body is bathed, and laid out on a plank. Clad in new clothes, it is conveyed with music to the burning-ground. A barber carries thither a pot containing fire. The corpse is set down near the pyre and divested of the new clothes, which are distributed between a barber, washerman, carpenter, a Billava and Holeya. The pyre is kindled by a Billava, and the mat on which the corpse has been lying is thrown thereon by a son or nephew of the deceased. On the third day the relations go to the burning-ground, and a barber and washerman sprinkle water over the ashes. Some days later, the caste people are invited to attend, and a barber, washerman, and carpenter build up on the spot where the corpse was burnt a lofty structure, made of bamboo and areca palm, in an odd number of tiers, and supported on an odd number of posts. It is decorated with cloths, fruits, tender cocoanuts, sugarcane, flowers, mango leaves, areca palm flowers, etc., and a fence is set up round it. The sons and other relations of the deceased carry to the burning-ground three balls of cooked rice (pinda) dyed with turmeric and tied up in a cloth, some raw rice dyed with turmeric, pieces of green plantain fruit, and pumpkin and a cocoanut. They go thrice round the structure, carrying the various articles in trays on their heads, and deposit them therein. The relations then throw a little of the coloured rice into the structure, and one of the castemen sprinkles water contained in a mango leaf over their hands. After bathing, they return home. The clothes, jewels, etc., of the deceased are laid on a cloth spread inside the house. A piece of turmeric is suspended from the ceiling by a string, and a tray containing water coloured yellow placed beneath it. Round this the females seat themselves. A cocoanut is broken, and a barber sprinkles the water thereof contained in a mango leaf over those assembled. On the following day, various kinds of food are prepared, and placed on leaves, with a piece of new cloth, within a room of the house. The cloth remains there for a year, when it is renewed. The renewal continues until another death occurs in the family.In the following table, the cephalic index of the Bants is compared with that of the Billavas and Shivalli Brāhmans:—Average.Maximum.Minimum.Brahman80.496.472Billava80.191.571Bant7891.270.8The headman among the Bants is generally called Guttinayya, meaning person of the guttu or site. Every village, or group of villages, possesses a guttu, and the Bant who occupies, or holds in possession the house or site set apart as the guttu is the Guttinayya. When this passes to another by sale or inheritance, the office of headman passes with it. It is said that, in some instances, the headmanship has in this way passed to classes other than Bants,e.g., Brāhmans and Jains. In some villages, the headman is, as among some other castes, called Gurikāra, whose appointment is hereditary.A few supplementary notes may be added on the Parivara, Nād, and Māsādika Bants. The Parivaras are confined to the southern taluks of the South Canara district. They may interdine, but may not intermarry with the other section. The rule of inheritance is makkalakattu (in the male line). Brāhman priests are engaged for the various ceremonials, so the Parivaras are more Brāhmanised than the Nād or Māsādika Bants. The Parivaras may resort to the wells used by Brāhmans, and they consequently claim superiority over the other sections. Among the Nād Bants, no marriage badge is tied on the neck of the bride. At a Parivara marriage, after the dhāre ceremony, the bridegroom ties a gold bead, called dhāre mani, on the neck of the bride. The remarriage of widows is not in vogue. In connection with the death ceremonies, a car is not, as among the Nād and Māsādika sections, set up over the mound (dhūpe). On the eleventh day, the spreading of a cloth on the mound for offerings of food must be done by Nekkāras, who wash clothes for Billavas.The Nād or Nādava and Māsādika Bants follow the aliya santāna law of succession, and intermarriage is permitted between the two sections. The names of the balis, which have already been given, are common among the Māsādikas, and do not apply to the Nāds, among whom different sept names occur,e.g., Honne, Shetti, Koudichi, etc. Elaborate death ceremonies are only performed if the deceased was old, or a respected member of the community. The corpse is generally cremated in one of the rice-fields belonging to the family. After the funeral, the male members of the family return home, and place a vessel containing water and light in a room. One or two women mustremain in this room, and the light must be kept burning until the bojja, or final death ceremonies, are over. The water in the vessel must be renewed twice daily. At the final ceremonies, a feast is given to the castemen, and in some places, the headman insists on the people of the house of mourning giving him a jewel as a pledge that the bojja will be performed on the ninth, eleventh, or thirteenth day. The headman visits the house on the previous day, and, after examination of the provisions, helps in cutting up vegetables, etc. On the bojja day, copper and silver coins, and small pieces of gold, are buried or sown in the field in which the ceremony is performed. This is called hanabiththodu. The lofty structure, called gurigi or upparige, is set up over the dhūpe or ashes heaped up into a mound, or in the field in which the body was cremated, only in the event of the deceased being a person of importance. In some places, two kinds of structure are used, one called gurigi, composed of several tiers, for males, and the other called dēlagūdu, consisting of a single tier, for females. Devil-dancers are engaged, and the commonest kōla performed by them is the eru kōla, or man and hobby-horse. In the room containing the vessel of water, four sticks are planted in the ground, and tied together. Over the sticks a cloth is placed, and the vessel of water placed beneath it. A bit of string is tied to the ceiling, and a piece of turmeric or a gold ring is attached to the end of it, and suspended so as to touch the water in the vessel. This is called nīr neralu (shadow in water), and seems to be a custom among various Tulu castes. After the bojja ceremony, all those who are under death pollution stand in two rows. A Madavali (washerman) touches them with acloth, and a Kēlasi (barber) sprinkles water over them. In this manner, they are freed from pollution.The most common title among the Bants is Chetti or Setti, but many others occur,e.g., Heggade, Nāyaka, Bangēra, Rai, Ballālaru, etc.Bārang Jhodia.—A sub-division of Poroja.Bardēshkar(people of twelve countries).—Some families among Konkani Brāhmans go by this name.Bāriki.—Bāriki is the name for village watchmen in Southern Ganjam, whose duty it further is to guide the traveller on the march from place to place. In the Bellary Manual, Bārika is given as the name for Canarese Kabbēras, who are village servants, who keep the village chāvadi (caste meeting-house) clean, look after the wants of officials halting in the village, and perform various other duties. In the Census Report, 1901, the Bārikas are said to be usually Bōyas. The Bārika of Mysore is defined by Mr. L. Rice as37“a menial among the village servants; a deputy talāri, who is employed to watch the crops from the growing crop to the granary.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Bellary district, that “in the middle of the threshold of nearly all the gateways of the ruined fortifications round the Bellary villages will be noticed a roughly cylindrical or conical stone, something like a lingam. This is the boddu-rāyi, literally the navel stone, and so the middle stone. It was planted there when the fort was built, and is affectionately regarded as being the boundary of the village site. Once a year, in May, just before the sowing season begins, a ceremony takes place in connection with it. Reverence is first made to the bullocksof the village, and in the evening they are driven through the gateway past the boddu-rāyi with tom-toms, flutes, and all kinds of music. The Bārike next does pūja (worship) to the stone, and then a string of mango leaves is tied across the gateway above it. The villagers now form sides, one party trying to drive the bullocks through the gate, and the other trying to keep them out. The greatest uproar and confusion naturally follow, and, in the midst of the turmoil, some bullock or other eventually breaks through the guardians of the gate, and gains the village. If that first bullock is a red one, the red grains on the red soils will flourish in the coming season. If he is white, white crops like cotton and white cholam will prosper. If he is red-and-white, both kinds will do well. When the rains fail, and, in any case, on the first full moon in September, rude human figures drawn on the ground with powdered charcoal may be seen at cross-roads and along big thoroughfares. They represent Jōkumāra the rain-god, and are made by the Bārikes—a class of village servants, who are usually of the Gaurimakkalu sub-division of the Kabbēras. The villagers give the artists some small remuneration, and believe that luck comes to those who pass over the figures.”Bārike.—A title of Gaudos and other Oriya castes.Barrellu(buffaloes).—An exogamous sept of Kāpu.Bāsala.—Recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as Telugu beggars and soothsayers in Vizagapatam. The word is apparently a corruption of Bāsa-vālu, a sage. The Bāsa-vālu pretend to be messengers of Indra, the chief of the Dēvatas, and prognosticate coming events.Basari(fig tree).—A gōtra of Kurni.Bāsava Golla.—A name for certain Koyis of the Godāvari district, whose grandfathers had a quarrel withsome of their neighbours, and separated from them. The name Bāsava is said to be derived from bhāsha, a language, as these Koyis speak a different language from the true Gollas.38In like manner, Bāsa Kondhs are those who speak their proper language, in contradistinction to those who speak Oriya, or Oriya mixed with Kui.Basavi.—SeeDēva-dāsi.Basiya Korono.—A sub-division of Korono.Basruvōgaru(basru, belly).—An exogamous sept of Gauda.Baththāla(rice).—An exogamous sept of Kamma.Batlu(cup).—An exogamous sept of Kuruba.Bauri.—There are found in the Madras Presidency nomad gangs of Bauris or Bāwariyas, who are described39as “one of the worst criminal tribes of India. The sphere of their operations extends throughout the length and breadth of the country. They not only commit robberies, burglaries and thefts, but also practice the art of manufacturing and passing counterfeit coin. They keep with them a small quantity of wheat and sandal seeds in a small tin or brass case, which they call Dēvakadana or God’s grain, and a tuft of peacock’s feathers, all in a bundle. They are very superstitious, and do not embark on any enterprise without first ascertaining by omens whether it will be attended with success or not. This they do by taking at random a small quantity of grains out of their Dēvakadana and counting the number of grains, the omen being considered good or bad according as the number of seeds is odd or even. For a detailed record of the history ofthis criminal class, and the methods employed in the performance of criminal acts, I would refer the reader to the accounts given by Mr. Paupa Rao40and Mr. W. Crooke.41Bāvāji.—The Bāvājis are Bairāgi or Gosāyi beggars, who travel about the country. They are known by various names,e.g., Bairāgi, Sādu, etc.Bāvuri.—The Bāvuris, or Bauris, are a low class of Oriya basket-makers, living in Ganjam, and are more familiarly known as Khodālo. They are a polluting class, living in separate quarters, and occupy a position lower than the Sāmantiyas, but higher than the Kondras, Dandāsis, and Haddis. They claim that palanquin (dhooly or dūli) bearing is their traditional occupation, and consequently call themselves Bōyi. “According to one story,” Risley writes,42“they were degraded for attempting to steal food from the banquet of the gods; another professes to trace them back to a mythical ancestor named Bāhak Rishi (the bearer of burdens), and tells how, while returning from a marriage procession, they sold the palanquin they had been hired to carry, got drunk on the proceeds, and assaulted their guru (religious preceptor), who cursed them for the sacrilege, and condemned them to rank thenceforward among the lowest castes of the community.” The Bāvuris are apparently divided into two endogamous sections, viz., Dulia and Khandi. The former regard themselves as superior to the latter, and prefer to be called Khodālo. Some of these have given up eating beef, call themselves Dāsa Khodālos, and claim descent from oneBalliga Doss, a famous Bāvuri devotee, who is said to have worked wonders, analogous to those of Nandan of the Paraiyan community. To this section the caste priests belong. At Russelkonda, a woman, when asked if she was a Bāvuri, replied that the caste is so called by others, but that its real name is Khodālo. Others, in reply to a question whether they belonged to the Khandi section, became angry, and said that the Khandis are inferior, because they eat frogs.The Bāvuris gave the name of two gōtras, saptha bhavunia and nāga, which are said to be exogamous. The former offer food to the gods on seven leaves of the white gourd melon,Benincasa cerifera(kokkara), and the latter on jak (Artocarpus integrifolia: panasa) leaves. All over the Oriya country there is a general belief that house-names or bamsams are foreign to the Oriya castes, and only possessed by the Telugus. But some genuine Oriya castes,e.g., Haddis, Dandāsis and Bhondāris, have exogamous bamsams.For every group of villages (muttah), the Bāvuris apparently have a headman called Bēhara, who is assisted by Naikos or Dolo Bēharas, or, in some places, Dondias or Porichas, who hold sway over a smaller number of villages. Each village has its own headman, called Bhollobhaya (good brother), to whose notice all irregularities are brought. These are either settled by himself, or referred to the Bēhara and Naiko. In some villages, in addition to the Bhollobhaya, there is a caste servant called Dangua or Dogara. For serious offences, a council-meeting is convened by the Bēhara, and attended by the Bhollobhayas, Naikos, and a few leading members of the community. The meeting is held in an open plain outside the village. Once in two orthree years, a council-meeting, called mondolo, is held, at which various matters are discussed, and decided. The expenses of meetings are defrayed by the inhabitants of the villages in which they take place. Among the most important matters to be decided by tribunals are adultery, eating with lower castes, the re-admission of convicts into the caste, etc. Punishment takes the form of a fine, and trial by ordeal is apparently not resorted to. A man, who is convicted of committing adultery, or eating with a member of a lower caste, is received back into the caste on payment of the fine. A woman, who has been proved guilty of such offences, is not so taken back. It is said that, when a member of a higher caste commits adultery with a Bāvuri woman, he is sometimes received into the Bāvuri caste. The Bēhara receives a small fee annually from each village or family, and also a small present of money for each marriage.Girls are married either before or after puberty. A man may marry his maternal uncle’s, but not his paternal aunt’s daughter. At an adult marriage, the festivities last for four days, whereas, at an infant marriage, they are extended over seven days. When a young man’s parents have selected a girl for him, they consult a Brāhman, and, if he decides that the marriage will be auspicious, they proceed to the girl’s home, and ask that a day be fixed for the betrothal. On the appointed day the amount of money, which is to be paid by the bridegroom-elect for jewels, etc., is fixed. One or two new cloths must be given to the girl’s grandmother, and the man’s party must announce the number of feasts they intend to give to the castemen. If the family is poor, the feasts are mentioned, but do not actually take place. The marriage ceremony is always celebrated at night. On the evening of the day prior thereto, the bride andbridegroom’s people proceed to the temple of the village goddess (Tākurāni), and, on their way home, go to seven houses of members of their own or some higher caste, and ask them to give them water, which is poured into a small vessel. This vessel is taken home, and hung over the bedi (marriage dais). The water is used by the bride and bridegroom on the following morning for bathing. On the marriage day, the bridegroom proceeds to the bride’s village, and is met on the way by her party, and escorted by his brother-in-law to the dais. The Bhollobhaya enquires whether the bride’s party have received everything as arranged, and, when he has been assured on this point, the bride is brought to the dais by her maternal uncle. She carries with her in her hands a little salt and rice; and, after throwing these over the bridegroom, she sits by his side. The grandfathers of the contracting couple, or a priest called Dhiyāni, officiate. Their palms are placed together, and the hands united by a string dyed with turmeric. The union of the hands is called hasthagonti, and is the binding portion of the ceremony. Turmeric water is poured over the hands seven times from a chank or sankha shell. Seven married women then throw over the heads of the couple a mixture ofZizyphus Jujuba(borkolipathro) leaves, rice smeared with turmeric, andCynodon Dactylon(dhūba) culms. This rite is called bhondaivaro, and is performed at all auspicious ceremonies. The fingers of the bride and bridegroom are then linked together, and they are led by the wife of the bride’s brother seven times round the bedi. The priest then proclaims that the soot can soon be wiped off the cooking-pot, but the connection brought about by the marriage is enduring, and relationship is secured for seven generations. The pair are taken indoors, and fed. Theremaining days of the marriage ceremonies are given up to feasting. The remarriage of widows is permitted. A widow is expected to marry the younger brother of her deceased husband, or, with his permission, may marry whom she likes.When a girl attains maturity, she is seated on a new mat, andZizyphus Jujubaleaves are thrown over her. This ceremony is sometimes repeated daily for six days, during which sweets, etc., are given to the girl, and women who bring presents are fed. On the seventh day, the girl is taken to a tank (pond), and bathed.The dead are either buried or burnt. The corpse is, at the funeral, borne in the hands, or on a bier, by four men. Soon after the village boundary has been crossed, the widow of the deceased throws rice over the eyes of the corpse, and also a little fire, after taking it three times round. She usually carries with her a pot and ladle, which she throws away. If an elderly woman dies, these rites are performed by her daughter-in-law. At the burial-ground, the corpse is taken seven times round the grave, and, as it is lowered into it, those present say “Oh! trees, Oh! sky, Oh! earth, we are laying him in. It is not our fault.” When the grave has been filled in, the figures of a man and woman are drawn on it, and all throw earth over it, saying “You were living with us; now you have left us. Do not trouble the people.” On their return home, the mourners sprinkle cowdung water about the house and over their feet, and toddy is partaken of. On the following day, all the old pots are thrown away, and the agnates eat rice cooked with margosa (Melia Azadirachta) leaves. Food is offered to the dead person, either at the burial-ground or in the backyard of the house. On the tenth day, the Dhiyani,as the priest is called, is sent for, and arrives with his drum (dhiyani). A small hut is erected on a tank bund (embankment), and food cooked seven times, and offered seven times on seven fragments of pots. A new cloth is spread, and on it food, fruits, a chank shell, etc., are placed, and offered to the deceased. The various articles are put into a new pot, and the son, going into the water up to his neck, throws the pot into the air, and breaks it. The celebrants of the rite then return to the house, and stand in a row in front thereof. They are there purified by means of milk smeared over their hands by the Dhiyani. On the twelfth day, food is offered on twelve leaves.The Bāvuris do not worship Jagannāthāswāmi, or other of the higher deities, but reverence their ancestors and the village goddesses or Tākurānis. Like other Oriya classes, the Bāvuris name their children on the twenty-first day. Opprobrious names are common among them,e.g., Ogādu (dirty fellow), Kangāli (wretched fellow), Haddia (Haddi, or sweeper caste).Bēdar or Bōya.—“Throughout the hills,” Buchanan writes,43“northward from Capaladurga, are many cultivated spots, in which, during Tippoo’s government, were settled many Baydaru or hunters, who received twelve pagodas (£4 5s.) a year, and served as irregular troops whenever required. Being accustomed to pursue tigers and deer in the woods, they were excellent marksmen with their match-locks, and indefatigable in following their prey; which, in the time of war, was the life and property of every helpless creature that came in their way. During the wars of Hyder and his son, these men were chief instruments in the terrible depredationscommitted in the lower Carnatic. They were also frequently employed with success against the Poligars (feudal chiefs), whose followers were of a similar description.” In the Gazetteer of the Anantapur district it is noted that “the Bōyas are the old fighting caste of this part of the country, whose exploits are so often recounted in the history books. The Poligars’ forces, and Haidar Ali’s famous troops were largely recruited from these people, and they still retain a keen interest in sport and manly exercises.”In his notes on the Bōyas, which Mr. N. E. Q. Mainwaring has kindly placed at my disposal, he writes as follows. “Although, until quite recently, many a Bōya served in the ranks of our Native army, being entered in the records thereof either under his caste title of Naidu, or under the heading of Gentu,44which was largely used in old day military records, yet this congenial method of earning a livelihood has now been swept away by a Government order, which directs that in future no Telegas shall be enlisted into the Indian army. That the Bōyas were much prized as fighting men in the stirring times of the eighteenth century is spoken to in the contemporaneous history of Colonel Wilks.45He speaks of the brave armies of the Poligars of Chitteldroog, who belonged to the Beder or Bōya race in the year 1755. Earlier, in 1750, Hyder Ali, who was then only a Naik in the service of the Mysore Rāja, used with great effect his select corps of Beder peons at the battle of Ginjee. Five years after thisbattle, when Hyder was rising to great eminence, he augmented his Beder peons, and used them as scouts for the purpose of ascertaining the whereabouts of his enemies, and for poisoning with the juice of the milk-hedge (Euphorbia Tirucalli) all wells in use by them, or in their line of march. The historian characterises them as being ‘brave and faithful thieves.’ In 1751, the most select army of Morari Row of Gooty consisted chiefly of Beder peons, and the accounts of their deeds in the field, as well as their defence of Gooty fort, which only fell after the meanness of device had been resorted to, prove their bravery in times gone by beyond doubt. There are still a number of old weapons to be found amongst the Bōyas, consisting of swords, daggers, spears, and matchlocks. None appear to be purely Bōya weapons, but they seem to have assumed the weapons of either Muhammadans or Hindus, according to which race held sway at the time. In some districts, there are still Bōya Poligars, but, as a rule, they are poor, and unable to maintain any position. Generally, the Bōyas live at peace with their neighbours, occasionally only committing a grave dacoity (robbery).46“In the Kurnool district, they have a bad name, and many are on the police records as habitual thieves and housebreakers. They seldom stoop to lesser offences. Some are carpenters, others blacksmiths who manufacture all sorts of agricultural implements. Some, again, are engaged as watchmen, and others make excellent snares for fish out of bamboo. But the majority of them are agriculturists, and most of them work on their own putta lands. They are now a hard-working, industrious people, who have become thrifty by dint of their industry,and whose former predatory habits are being forgotten. Each village, or group of villages, submits to the authority of a headman, who is generally termed the Naidu, less commonly Dora as chieftain. In some parts of Kurnool, the headmen are called Simhasana Bōyas. The headman presides at all functions, and settles, with the assistance of the elders, any disputes that may arise in the community regarding division of property, adultery, and other matters. The headman has the power to inflict fines, the amount of which is regulated by the status and wealth of the defaulter. But it is always arranged that the penalty shall be sufficient to cover the expense of feeding the panchayatdars (members of council), and leave a little over to be divided between the injured party and the headman. In this way, the headman gets paid for his services, and practically fixes his own remuneration.”It is stated in the Manual of the Bellary district that “of the various Hindu castes in Bellary, the Bōyas (called in Canarese Bēdars, Byēdas, or Byādās) are far the strongest numerically. Many of the Poligars whom Sir Thomas Munro found in virtual possession of the country when it was added to the Company belonged to this caste, and their irregular levies, and also a large proportion of Haidar’s formidable force, were of the same breed. Harpanahalli was the seat of one of the most powerful Poligars in the district in the eighteenth century. The founder of the family was a Bōya taliāri, who, on the subversion of the Vijayanagar dynasty, seized on two small districts near Harpanahalli. The Bōyas are perhaps the only people in the district who still retain any aptitude for manly sports. They are now for the most part cultivators and herdsmen or are engaged under Government as constables, peons, village watchmen(taliāris), and so forth. Their community provides an instructive example of the growth of caste sub-divisions. Both the Telugu-speaking Bōyas and the Canarese-speaking Bēdars are split into the two main divisions of Ūru or village men, and Myāsa or grass-land men, and each of these divisions is again sub-divided into a number of exogamous Bedagas. Four of the best known of these sub-divisions are Yemmalavaru or buffalo-men; Mandalavaru or men of the herd; Pūlavaru or flower-men, and Mīnalavaru or fish-men. They are in no way totemistic. Curiously enough, each Bedagu has its own particular god, to which its members pay special reverence. But these Bedagas bear the same names among both the Bōyas and the Bēdars, and also among both the Ūru and Myāsa divisions of both Bōyas and Bēdars. It thus seems clear that, at some distant period, all the Bōyas and all the Bēdars must have belonged to one homogeneous caste. At present, though Ūru Bōyas will marry with Ūru Bēdars and Myāsa Bōyas with Myāsa Bēdars, there is no intermarriage between Ūrus and Myāsas, whether they be Bōyas or Bēdars. Even if Ūrus and Myāsas dine together, they sit in different rows, each division by themselves. Again, the Ūrus (whether Bōyas or Bēdars) will eat chicken and drink alcohol, but the Myāsas will not touch a fowl or any form of strong drink, and are so strict in this last matter that they will not even sit on mats made of the leaf of the date-palm, the tree which in Bellary provides all the toddy. The Ūrus, moreover, celebrate their marriages with the ordinary ceremonial of the hālu-kamba or milk-post, and the surge, or bathing of the happy pair; the bride sits on a flour-grinding stone, and the bridegroom stands on a basket full of cholam (millet), and they call in Brāhmans to officiate. But the Myāsas have a simplerritual, which omits most of these points, and dispenses with the Brāhman. Other differences are that the Ūru women wear ravikkais or tight-fitting bodices, while the Myāsas tuck them under their waist-string. Both divisions eat beef, and both have a hereditary headman called the ejamān, and hereditary Dāsaris who act as their priests.”
Kambla Buffalo Race.Kambla Buffalo Race.
Kambla Buffalo Race.
The Bants are fond of out-door sports, football and buffalo-racing being amongst their favourite amusements. But the most popular of all is cock-fighting. Every Bant, who is not a Jain, takes an interest in this sport, and large assemblages of cocks are found at every fair and festival throughout South Canara. “The outsider,” it has been said,35“cannot fail to be struck with the tremendous excitement that attends a village fair in South Canara. Large numbers of cocks are displayed for sale, and groups of excited people may be seen huddled together, bending down with intense eagerness to watch every detail in the progress of a combat between two celebrated village game-cocks.” Cock fights on an elaborate scale take place on the day after theDīpāvali, Sankaranthi or Vinayakachathurthi, and Gokalāshtami festivals, outside the village boundary. At Hiriadaka, in October, 1907, more than a hundred birds were tethered by the leg to the scrub jungle composed of the evergreen shrubIxora coccinea, or carried in the arms of their owners or youngsters. Only males, from the town and surrounding villages, were witnesses of the spectacle. The tethered birds, if within range of each other, excited by the constant crowing and turmoil, indulged in an impromptu fight. Grains of rice and water were poured into the mouths and over the heads of the birds before the fight, and after each round. The birds were armed with cunningly devised steel spurs, constituting a battery of variously curved and sinuous weapons. It is believed that the Bhūta (demon) is appeased, if the blood from the wounds drops on the ground. The men, whose duty it is to separate the birds at the end of a round, sometimes receive nasty wounds from the spurs. The tail feathers of a wounded bird are lifted up, and a palm leaf fan or towel is waved to and fro over the cloacal orifice to revive it. The owner of a victorious bird becomes the possessor of the vanquished bird, dead or alive. At an exhibition of the products of South Canara, during a recent visit of the Governor of Madras to Mangalore, a collection of spurs was exhibited in the class “household implements.”
Kambla Racing Buffaloes.Kambla Racing Buffaloes.
Kambla Racing Buffaloes.
For the following note on buffalo races, I am indebted to Mr. H. O. D. Harding. “This is a sport that has grown up among a race of cultivators of wet land. It is, I believe, peculiar to South Canara, where all the cultivation worth mentioning is wet. The Bants and Jains, and other landowners of position, own and run buffaloes, and the Billava, or toddy drawer, has also entered the racing world. Every rich Bant keeps hiskambla field consecrated to buffalo-racing, and his pair of racing buffaloes, costing from Rs. 150 to Rs. 500, are splendid animals; and, except for an occasional plough-drawing at the beginning of the cultivation season, are used for no purpose all the year, except racing. The racing is for no prize or stakes, and there is no betting, starter, judge, or winning post. Each pair of buffaloes runs the course alone, and is judged by the assembled crowd for pace and style, and, most important of all, the height and breadth of the splash which they make. Most people know the common levelling plank used by the ryots (cultivators) all over India to level the wet field after ploughing. It is a plank some 4 or 5 feet long by 1 or 1½ feet broad, and on it the driver stands to give it weight, and the buffaloes pull it over the mud of a flooded rice-field. This is the prototype of the buffalo-racing car, and any day during the cultivating season in the Tulu country one may see two boys racing for the love of the sport, as they drive their levelling boards. From this the racing car has been specialised, and, if a work of art for its own purpose, is not a car on which any one could or would wish to travel far. The leveller of utility is cut down to a plank about 1½ by 1 foot, sometimes handsomely carved, on which is fixed a gaily decorated wooden stool about 6 inches high and 10 inches across each way, hollowed out on the top, and just big enough to afford good standing for one foot. In the plank, on each side, are holes to let the mud and water through. The plank is fixed to a pole, which is tied to the buffalo’s yoke. The buffaloes are decorated with coloured jhūls and marvellous head-pieces of brass and silver (sometimes bearing the emblems of the sun and moon), and ropes which make a sort of bridle. The driver, stripping himself to the necessary minimum ofgarments, mounts, while some of his friends cling, like ants struggling round a dead beetle, to the buffaloes. When he is fairly up, they let go, and the animals start. The course is a wet rice-field, about 150 yards long, full of mud and water. All round are hundreds, or perhaps thousands of people, including Pariahs who dance in groups in the mud, play stick-game, and beat drums. In front of the galloping buffaloes the water is clear and still, throwing a powerful reflection of them as they gallop down the course, raising a perfect tornado of mud and water. The driver stands with one foot on the stool, and one on the pole of the car. He holds a whip aloft in one hand, and one of the buffaloes’ tails in the other. He drives without reins, with nothing but a waggling tail to hold on to and steer by. Opening his mouth wide, he shouts for all he is worth, while, to all appearances, a deluge of mud and water goes down his throat. So he comes down the course, the plank on which he stands throwing up a sort of Prince of Wales’ feathers of mud and water round him. The stance on the plank is no easy matter, and not a few men come to grief, but it is soft falling in the slush. Marks are given for pace, style, sticking to the plank, and throwing up the biggest and widest splash. Sometimes a kind of gallows, perhaps twenty feet high, is erected on the course, and there is a round of applause if the splash reaches up to or above it. Sometimes the buffaloes bolt, scatter the crowd, and get away into the young rice. At the end of the course, the driver jumps off with a parting smack at his buffaloes, which run up the slope of the field, and stop of themselves in what may be called the paddock. At a big meeting perhaps a hundred pairs, brought from all over the Tulu country, will compete, and the big men always send theirbuffaloes to the races headed by the local band. The roads are alive with horns and tom-toms for several days. The proceedings commence with a procession, which is not infrequently headed by a couple of painted dolls in an attitude suggestive of that reproductiveness, which the races really give thanks for. They are a sort of harvest festival, before the second or sugge crop is sown, and are usually held in October and November. Devils must be propitiated, and the meeting opens with a devil dance. A painted, grass-crowned devil dancer, riding a hobby-horse, proceeds with music round the kambla field. Then comes the buffalo procession, and the races commence. At a big meeting near Mangalore, the two leading devil dancers were dressed up in masks, and coat and trousers of blue mission cloth, and one had the genitalia represented by a long piece of blue cloth tipped with red, and enormous testes. Buffaloes, young and old, trained and untrained, compete, some without the plank attached to them, and others with planks but without drivers. Accidents sometimes happen, owing to the animals breaking away among the crowd. On one occasion, a man who was in front of a pair of buffaloes which were just about to start failed to jump clear of them. Catching hold of the yoke, he hung on to it by his hands, and was carried right down the course, and was landed safely at the other end. If he had dropped, he would have fallen among four pairs of hoofs, not to mention the planks, and would probably have been brained. It is often a case of owners up, and the sons and nephews of big Bants, worth perhaps Rs. 10,000 a year, drive the teams.”
To the above account, I may add a few notes made at a buffalo race-meeting near Udipi, at which I was present. Each group of buffaloes, as they went up the track tothe starting-point, was preceded by the Koraga band playing on drum, fife and cymbals, Holeyas armed with staves and dancing, and a man holding a flag (nishāni). Sometimes, in addition to the flag, there is a pakkē or spear on the end of a bamboo covered with strips of cloth, or a makara torana,i.e., festooned cloths between two bamboos. The two last are permitted only if the buffaloes belong to a Bant or Brāhman, not if they are the property of a Billava. At the end of the races, the Ballāla chief, in whose field they had taken place, retired in procession, headed by a man carrying his banner, which, during the races, had been floating on the top of a long bamboo pole at the far end of the track. He was followed by the Koraga band, and the Holeyas attached to him, armed with clubs, and dancing a step dance amid discordant noises. Two Nalkes (devil-dancers), dressed up in their professional garb, and a torch-bearer also joined in the procession, in the rear of which came the Ballāla beneath a decorated umbrella. In every village there are rākshasas (demons), called Kambla-asura, who preside over the fields. The races are held to propitiate them, and, if they are omitted, it is believed that there will be a failure of the crop. According to some, Kambla-asura is the brother of Mahēshasura, the buffalo-headed giant, from whom Mysore receives its name. The Koragas sit up through the night before the Kambla day, performing a ceremony called panikkuluni, or sitting under the dew. They sing songs to the accompaniment of the band, about their devil Nīcha, and offer toddy and a rice-pudding boiled in a large earthen pot, which is broken so that the pudding remains as a solid mass. This pudding is called kandēl addē, or pot pudding. On the morning of the races, the Holeyas scatter manure over the field, andplough it. On the following day, the seedlings are planted, without, as in ordinary cases, any ploughing. To propitiate various devils, the days following the races are devoted to cock-fighting. The Kamblas, in different places, have various names derived from the village deity, the chief village devil, or the village itself,e.g., Janardhana Dēvara, Daivala, or Udiyavar. The young men, who have the management of the buffaloes, are called Bannangayi Gurikara (half-ripe cocoanut masters) as they have the right of taking tender cocoanuts, as well as beaten rice to give them physical strength, without the special permission of their landlord. At the village of Vandar, the races take place in a dry field, which has been ploughed, and beaten to break up the clods of earth. For this reason they are called podi (powder) Kambla.
A pair of buffaloes, belonging to the field in which the races take place, should enter the field first, and a breach of this observance leads to discussion and quarrels. On one occasion, a dispute arose between two Bants in connection with the question of precedence. One of them brought his own pair of buffaloes, and the other a borrowed pair. If the latter had brought his own animals, he would have had precedence over the former. But, as his animals were borrowed, precedence was given to the man who brought his own buffaloes. This led to a dispute, and the races were not commenced until the delicate point at issue was decided. In some places, a long pole, called pūkāre, decorated with flags, flowers, and festoons of leaves, is set up in the Kambla field, sometimes on a platform. Billavas are in charge of this pole, which is worshipped, throughout the races, and others may not touch it.
Pūkāre Post at Kambla Buffalo Races.Pūkāre Post at Kambla Buffalo Races.
Pūkāre Post at Kambla Buffalo Races.
Fines inflicted by the Bant caste council are, I am informed, spent in the celebration of a temple festival.In former days, those found guilty by the council were beaten with tamarind switches, made to stand exposed to the sun, or big red ants were thrown over their bodies. Sometimes, to establish the innocence of an accused person, he had to take a piece of red-hot iron (axe, etc.) in his hand, and give it to his accuser.
At a puberty ceremony among some Bants the girl sits in the courtyard of her house on five unhusked cocoanuts covered with the bamboo cylinder which is used for storing paddy. Women place four pots filled with water, and containing betel leaves and nuts, round the girl, and empty the contents over her head. She is then secluded in an outhouse. The women are entertained with a feast, which must include fowl and fish curry. The cocoanuts are given to a washerwoman. On the fourth day, the girl is bathed, and received back at the house. Beaten rice, and rice flour mixed with jaggery (crude sugar) are served out to those assembled. The girl is kept gōsha (secluded) for a time, and fed up with generous diet.
Under the aliya santāna system of inheritance, the High Court has ruled that there is no marriage within the meaning of the Penal Code. But, though divorce and remarriage are permitted to women, there are formal rules and ceremonies observed in connection with them, and amongst the well-to-do classes divorce is not looked upon as respectable, and is not frequent. The fictitious marriage prevailing amongst the Nāyars is unknown among the Bants, and a wife also usually leaves the family house, and resides at her husband’s, unless she occupies so senior a position in her own family as to make it desirable that she should live on the family estate.
The Bants are divided into a number of balis (exogamous septs), which are traced in the female line,i.e., a boy belongs to his mother’s, not to his father’s bali. Children belonging to the same bali cannot marry, and the prohibition extends to certain allied (koodu) balis. Moreover, a man cannot marry his father’s brother’s daughter, though she belongs to a different bali. In a memorandum by Mr. M. Mundappa Bangera,36it is stated that “bali in aliya santāna families corresponds to gōtra of the Brāhmins governed by Hindu law, but differs in that it is derived from the mother’s side, whereas gōtra is always derived from the father’s side. A marriage between a boy and girl belonging to the same bali is considered incestuous, as falling within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. It is not at all difficult to find out the bali to which a man or woman belongs, as one can scarcely be found who does not know one’s own bali by rote. And the heads of caste, who preside at every wedding party, and who are also consulted by the elders of the boy or girl before an alliance is formed, are such experts in these matters that they decide at once without reference to any books or rules whether intermarriages between persons brought before them can be lawfully performed or not.” As examples of balis among the Bants, the following may be cited:—
Infant marriage is not prohibited, but is not common, and both men and girls are usually married after they have reached maturity. There are two forms of marriage, one called kai dhāre for marriages between virgins and bachelors, the other called budu dhāre for the marriage of widows. After a match has been arranged, the formal betrothal, called ponnapāthera or nischaya tambula, takes place. The bridegroom’s relatives and friends proceed in a body on the appointed day to the bride’s house, and are there entertained at a grand dinner, to which the bride’s relatives and friends are also bidden. Subsequently the karnavans (heads) of the two families formally engage to perform the marriage, and plates of betel leaves and areca nuts are exchanged, and the betel and nuts partaken of by the two parties. The actual marriage ceremony is performed at the house of the bride or bridegroom, as may be most convenient. The proceedings commence with the bridegroom seating himself in the marriage pandal, a booth or canopy specially erected for the occasion. He is there shaved by the village barber, and then retires and bathes. This done, both he and the bride are conducted to the pandal by their relations, or sometimes by the village headman. They walk thrice round the seat, and then sit down side by side. The essential and binding part of the ceremony, called dhāre, then takes place. The right hand of the bride being placed over the right hand of the bridegroom, a silver vessel (dhāre gindi) filled with water, with a cocoanut over the mouth and the flower of the areca palm on the cocoanut, is placed on the joined hands. The parents, the managers of the two families, and the village headmen all touch the vessel, which, with the hands of the bridal pair, is moved up and down three times. In certain families the water is poured from thevessel into the united hands of the couple, and this betokens the gift of the bride. This form of gift by pouring water was formerly common, and was not confined to the gift of a bride. It still survives in the marriage ceremonies of various castes, and the name of the Bant ceremony shows that it must once have been universal among them. The bride and bridegroom then receive the congratulations of the guests, who express a hope that the happy couple may become the parents of twelve sons and twelve daughters. An empty plate, and another containing rice, are next placed before the pair, and their friends sprinkle them with rice from the one, and place a small gift, generally four annas, in the other. The bridegroom then makes a gift to the bride. This is called sirdachi, and varies in amount according to the position of the parties. This must be returned to the husband, if his wife leaves him, or if she is divorced for misconduct. The bride is then taken back in procession to her home. A few days later she is again taken to the bridegroom’s house, and must serve her husband with food. He makes another money present to her, and after that the marriage is consummated.
According to another account of the marriage ceremony among some Bants, the barber shaves the bridegroom’s face, using cow’s milk instead of water, and touches the bride’s forehead with razor. The bride and bridegroom bathe, and dress up in new clothes. A plank covered with a newly-washed cloth supplied by a washerman, a tray containing raw rice, a lighted lamp, betel leaves and areca nuts, etc., are placed in the pandal. A girl carries a tray on which are placed a lighted lamp, a measure full of raw rice, and betel. She is followed by the bridegroom conducted by her brother, and the bride, led by the bridegroom’s sister. They enterthe pandal and, after going round the articles contained therein five times, sit down on the plank. An elderly woman, belonging to the family of the caste headman, brings a tray containing rice, and places it in front of the couple, over whom she sprinkles a little of the rice. The assembled men and women then place presents of money on the tray, and sprinkle rice over the couple. The right hand of the bride is held by the headman, and her uncle, and laid in that of the bridegroom. A cocoanut is placed over the mouth of a vessel, which is decorated with mango leaves and flowers of the areca palm. The headman and male relations of the bride place this vessel thrice in the hands of the bridal couple. The vessel is subsequently emptied at the foot of a cocoanut tree.
The foregoing account shows that the Bant marriage is a good deal more than concubinage. It is indeed as formal a marriage as is to be found among any people in the world, and the freedom of divorce which is allowed cannot deprive it of its essential character. Widows are married with much less formality. The ceremony consists simply of joining the hands of the couple, but, strange to say, a screen is placed between them. All widows are allowed to marry again, but it is, as a rule, only the young women who actually do so. If a widow becomes pregnant, she must marry or suffer loss of caste.
The Bants all burn their dead, except in the case of children under seven, and those who have died of leprosy or of epidemic disease such as cholera or small-pox. The funeral pile must consist at least partly of mango wood. On the ninth, eleventh or thirteenth day, people are fed in large numbers, but the Jains now substitute for this a distribution of cocoanuts on the third, fifth,seventh, or ninth day. Once a year—generally in October—a ceremony called agelū is performed for the propitiation of ancestors.
From a detailed account of the Bant death ceremonies, I gather that the news of a death is conveyed to the caste people by a Holeya. A carpenter, accompanied by musicians, proceeds to cut down a mango tree for the funeral pyre. The body is bathed, and laid out on a plank. Clad in new clothes, it is conveyed with music to the burning-ground. A barber carries thither a pot containing fire. The corpse is set down near the pyre and divested of the new clothes, which are distributed between a barber, washerman, carpenter, a Billava and Holeya. The pyre is kindled by a Billava, and the mat on which the corpse has been lying is thrown thereon by a son or nephew of the deceased. On the third day the relations go to the burning-ground, and a barber and washerman sprinkle water over the ashes. Some days later, the caste people are invited to attend, and a barber, washerman, and carpenter build up on the spot where the corpse was burnt a lofty structure, made of bamboo and areca palm, in an odd number of tiers, and supported on an odd number of posts. It is decorated with cloths, fruits, tender cocoanuts, sugarcane, flowers, mango leaves, areca palm flowers, etc., and a fence is set up round it. The sons and other relations of the deceased carry to the burning-ground three balls of cooked rice (pinda) dyed with turmeric and tied up in a cloth, some raw rice dyed with turmeric, pieces of green plantain fruit, and pumpkin and a cocoanut. They go thrice round the structure, carrying the various articles in trays on their heads, and deposit them therein. The relations then throw a little of the coloured rice into the structure, and one of the castemen sprinkles water contained in a mango leaf over their hands. After bathing, they return home. The clothes, jewels, etc., of the deceased are laid on a cloth spread inside the house. A piece of turmeric is suspended from the ceiling by a string, and a tray containing water coloured yellow placed beneath it. Round this the females seat themselves. A cocoanut is broken, and a barber sprinkles the water thereof contained in a mango leaf over those assembled. On the following day, various kinds of food are prepared, and placed on leaves, with a piece of new cloth, within a room of the house. The cloth remains there for a year, when it is renewed. The renewal continues until another death occurs in the family.
In the following table, the cephalic index of the Bants is compared with that of the Billavas and Shivalli Brāhmans:—
Average.Maximum.Minimum.Brahman80.496.472Billava80.191.571Bant7891.270.8
The headman among the Bants is generally called Guttinayya, meaning person of the guttu or site. Every village, or group of villages, possesses a guttu, and the Bant who occupies, or holds in possession the house or site set apart as the guttu is the Guttinayya. When this passes to another by sale or inheritance, the office of headman passes with it. It is said that, in some instances, the headmanship has in this way passed to classes other than Bants,e.g., Brāhmans and Jains. In some villages, the headman is, as among some other castes, called Gurikāra, whose appointment is hereditary.
A few supplementary notes may be added on the Parivara, Nād, and Māsādika Bants. The Parivaras are confined to the southern taluks of the South Canara district. They may interdine, but may not intermarry with the other section. The rule of inheritance is makkalakattu (in the male line). Brāhman priests are engaged for the various ceremonials, so the Parivaras are more Brāhmanised than the Nād or Māsādika Bants. The Parivaras may resort to the wells used by Brāhmans, and they consequently claim superiority over the other sections. Among the Nād Bants, no marriage badge is tied on the neck of the bride. At a Parivara marriage, after the dhāre ceremony, the bridegroom ties a gold bead, called dhāre mani, on the neck of the bride. The remarriage of widows is not in vogue. In connection with the death ceremonies, a car is not, as among the Nād and Māsādika sections, set up over the mound (dhūpe). On the eleventh day, the spreading of a cloth on the mound for offerings of food must be done by Nekkāras, who wash clothes for Billavas.
The Nād or Nādava and Māsādika Bants follow the aliya santāna law of succession, and intermarriage is permitted between the two sections. The names of the balis, which have already been given, are common among the Māsādikas, and do not apply to the Nāds, among whom different sept names occur,e.g., Honne, Shetti, Koudichi, etc. Elaborate death ceremonies are only performed if the deceased was old, or a respected member of the community. The corpse is generally cremated in one of the rice-fields belonging to the family. After the funeral, the male members of the family return home, and place a vessel containing water and light in a room. One or two women mustremain in this room, and the light must be kept burning until the bojja, or final death ceremonies, are over. The water in the vessel must be renewed twice daily. At the final ceremonies, a feast is given to the castemen, and in some places, the headman insists on the people of the house of mourning giving him a jewel as a pledge that the bojja will be performed on the ninth, eleventh, or thirteenth day. The headman visits the house on the previous day, and, after examination of the provisions, helps in cutting up vegetables, etc. On the bojja day, copper and silver coins, and small pieces of gold, are buried or sown in the field in which the ceremony is performed. This is called hanabiththodu. The lofty structure, called gurigi or upparige, is set up over the dhūpe or ashes heaped up into a mound, or in the field in which the body was cremated, only in the event of the deceased being a person of importance. In some places, two kinds of structure are used, one called gurigi, composed of several tiers, for males, and the other called dēlagūdu, consisting of a single tier, for females. Devil-dancers are engaged, and the commonest kōla performed by them is the eru kōla, or man and hobby-horse. In the room containing the vessel of water, four sticks are planted in the ground, and tied together. Over the sticks a cloth is placed, and the vessel of water placed beneath it. A bit of string is tied to the ceiling, and a piece of turmeric or a gold ring is attached to the end of it, and suspended so as to touch the water in the vessel. This is called nīr neralu (shadow in water), and seems to be a custom among various Tulu castes. After the bojja ceremony, all those who are under death pollution stand in two rows. A Madavali (washerman) touches them with acloth, and a Kēlasi (barber) sprinkles water over them. In this manner, they are freed from pollution.
The most common title among the Bants is Chetti or Setti, but many others occur,e.g., Heggade, Nāyaka, Bangēra, Rai, Ballālaru, etc.
Bārang Jhodia.—A sub-division of Poroja.
Bardēshkar(people of twelve countries).—Some families among Konkani Brāhmans go by this name.
Bāriki.—Bāriki is the name for village watchmen in Southern Ganjam, whose duty it further is to guide the traveller on the march from place to place. In the Bellary Manual, Bārika is given as the name for Canarese Kabbēras, who are village servants, who keep the village chāvadi (caste meeting-house) clean, look after the wants of officials halting in the village, and perform various other duties. In the Census Report, 1901, the Bārikas are said to be usually Bōyas. The Bārika of Mysore is defined by Mr. L. Rice as37“a menial among the village servants; a deputy talāri, who is employed to watch the crops from the growing crop to the granary.”
It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Bellary district, that “in the middle of the threshold of nearly all the gateways of the ruined fortifications round the Bellary villages will be noticed a roughly cylindrical or conical stone, something like a lingam. This is the boddu-rāyi, literally the navel stone, and so the middle stone. It was planted there when the fort was built, and is affectionately regarded as being the boundary of the village site. Once a year, in May, just before the sowing season begins, a ceremony takes place in connection with it. Reverence is first made to the bullocksof the village, and in the evening they are driven through the gateway past the boddu-rāyi with tom-toms, flutes, and all kinds of music. The Bārike next does pūja (worship) to the stone, and then a string of mango leaves is tied across the gateway above it. The villagers now form sides, one party trying to drive the bullocks through the gate, and the other trying to keep them out. The greatest uproar and confusion naturally follow, and, in the midst of the turmoil, some bullock or other eventually breaks through the guardians of the gate, and gains the village. If that first bullock is a red one, the red grains on the red soils will flourish in the coming season. If he is white, white crops like cotton and white cholam will prosper. If he is red-and-white, both kinds will do well. When the rains fail, and, in any case, on the first full moon in September, rude human figures drawn on the ground with powdered charcoal may be seen at cross-roads and along big thoroughfares. They represent Jōkumāra the rain-god, and are made by the Bārikes—a class of village servants, who are usually of the Gaurimakkalu sub-division of the Kabbēras. The villagers give the artists some small remuneration, and believe that luck comes to those who pass over the figures.”
Bārike.—A title of Gaudos and other Oriya castes.
Barrellu(buffaloes).—An exogamous sept of Kāpu.
Bāsala.—Recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as Telugu beggars and soothsayers in Vizagapatam. The word is apparently a corruption of Bāsa-vālu, a sage. The Bāsa-vālu pretend to be messengers of Indra, the chief of the Dēvatas, and prognosticate coming events.
Basari(fig tree).—A gōtra of Kurni.
Bāsava Golla.—A name for certain Koyis of the Godāvari district, whose grandfathers had a quarrel withsome of their neighbours, and separated from them. The name Bāsava is said to be derived from bhāsha, a language, as these Koyis speak a different language from the true Gollas.38In like manner, Bāsa Kondhs are those who speak their proper language, in contradistinction to those who speak Oriya, or Oriya mixed with Kui.
Basavi.—SeeDēva-dāsi.
Basiya Korono.—A sub-division of Korono.
Basruvōgaru(basru, belly).—An exogamous sept of Gauda.
Baththāla(rice).—An exogamous sept of Kamma.
Batlu(cup).—An exogamous sept of Kuruba.
Bauri.—There are found in the Madras Presidency nomad gangs of Bauris or Bāwariyas, who are described39as “one of the worst criminal tribes of India. The sphere of their operations extends throughout the length and breadth of the country. They not only commit robberies, burglaries and thefts, but also practice the art of manufacturing and passing counterfeit coin. They keep with them a small quantity of wheat and sandal seeds in a small tin or brass case, which they call Dēvakadana or God’s grain, and a tuft of peacock’s feathers, all in a bundle. They are very superstitious, and do not embark on any enterprise without first ascertaining by omens whether it will be attended with success or not. This they do by taking at random a small quantity of grains out of their Dēvakadana and counting the number of grains, the omen being considered good or bad according as the number of seeds is odd or even. For a detailed record of the history ofthis criminal class, and the methods employed in the performance of criminal acts, I would refer the reader to the accounts given by Mr. Paupa Rao40and Mr. W. Crooke.41
Bāvāji.—The Bāvājis are Bairāgi or Gosāyi beggars, who travel about the country. They are known by various names,e.g., Bairāgi, Sādu, etc.
Bāvuri.—The Bāvuris, or Bauris, are a low class of Oriya basket-makers, living in Ganjam, and are more familiarly known as Khodālo. They are a polluting class, living in separate quarters, and occupy a position lower than the Sāmantiyas, but higher than the Kondras, Dandāsis, and Haddis. They claim that palanquin (dhooly or dūli) bearing is their traditional occupation, and consequently call themselves Bōyi. “According to one story,” Risley writes,42“they were degraded for attempting to steal food from the banquet of the gods; another professes to trace them back to a mythical ancestor named Bāhak Rishi (the bearer of burdens), and tells how, while returning from a marriage procession, they sold the palanquin they had been hired to carry, got drunk on the proceeds, and assaulted their guru (religious preceptor), who cursed them for the sacrilege, and condemned them to rank thenceforward among the lowest castes of the community.” The Bāvuris are apparently divided into two endogamous sections, viz., Dulia and Khandi. The former regard themselves as superior to the latter, and prefer to be called Khodālo. Some of these have given up eating beef, call themselves Dāsa Khodālos, and claim descent from oneBalliga Doss, a famous Bāvuri devotee, who is said to have worked wonders, analogous to those of Nandan of the Paraiyan community. To this section the caste priests belong. At Russelkonda, a woman, when asked if she was a Bāvuri, replied that the caste is so called by others, but that its real name is Khodālo. Others, in reply to a question whether they belonged to the Khandi section, became angry, and said that the Khandis are inferior, because they eat frogs.
The Bāvuris gave the name of two gōtras, saptha bhavunia and nāga, which are said to be exogamous. The former offer food to the gods on seven leaves of the white gourd melon,Benincasa cerifera(kokkara), and the latter on jak (Artocarpus integrifolia: panasa) leaves. All over the Oriya country there is a general belief that house-names or bamsams are foreign to the Oriya castes, and only possessed by the Telugus. But some genuine Oriya castes,e.g., Haddis, Dandāsis and Bhondāris, have exogamous bamsams.
For every group of villages (muttah), the Bāvuris apparently have a headman called Bēhara, who is assisted by Naikos or Dolo Bēharas, or, in some places, Dondias or Porichas, who hold sway over a smaller number of villages. Each village has its own headman, called Bhollobhaya (good brother), to whose notice all irregularities are brought. These are either settled by himself, or referred to the Bēhara and Naiko. In some villages, in addition to the Bhollobhaya, there is a caste servant called Dangua or Dogara. For serious offences, a council-meeting is convened by the Bēhara, and attended by the Bhollobhayas, Naikos, and a few leading members of the community. The meeting is held in an open plain outside the village. Once in two orthree years, a council-meeting, called mondolo, is held, at which various matters are discussed, and decided. The expenses of meetings are defrayed by the inhabitants of the villages in which they take place. Among the most important matters to be decided by tribunals are adultery, eating with lower castes, the re-admission of convicts into the caste, etc. Punishment takes the form of a fine, and trial by ordeal is apparently not resorted to. A man, who is convicted of committing adultery, or eating with a member of a lower caste, is received back into the caste on payment of the fine. A woman, who has been proved guilty of such offences, is not so taken back. It is said that, when a member of a higher caste commits adultery with a Bāvuri woman, he is sometimes received into the Bāvuri caste. The Bēhara receives a small fee annually from each village or family, and also a small present of money for each marriage.
Girls are married either before or after puberty. A man may marry his maternal uncle’s, but not his paternal aunt’s daughter. At an adult marriage, the festivities last for four days, whereas, at an infant marriage, they are extended over seven days. When a young man’s parents have selected a girl for him, they consult a Brāhman, and, if he decides that the marriage will be auspicious, they proceed to the girl’s home, and ask that a day be fixed for the betrothal. On the appointed day the amount of money, which is to be paid by the bridegroom-elect for jewels, etc., is fixed. One or two new cloths must be given to the girl’s grandmother, and the man’s party must announce the number of feasts they intend to give to the castemen. If the family is poor, the feasts are mentioned, but do not actually take place. The marriage ceremony is always celebrated at night. On the evening of the day prior thereto, the bride andbridegroom’s people proceed to the temple of the village goddess (Tākurāni), and, on their way home, go to seven houses of members of their own or some higher caste, and ask them to give them water, which is poured into a small vessel. This vessel is taken home, and hung over the bedi (marriage dais). The water is used by the bride and bridegroom on the following morning for bathing. On the marriage day, the bridegroom proceeds to the bride’s village, and is met on the way by her party, and escorted by his brother-in-law to the dais. The Bhollobhaya enquires whether the bride’s party have received everything as arranged, and, when he has been assured on this point, the bride is brought to the dais by her maternal uncle. She carries with her in her hands a little salt and rice; and, after throwing these over the bridegroom, she sits by his side. The grandfathers of the contracting couple, or a priest called Dhiyāni, officiate. Their palms are placed together, and the hands united by a string dyed with turmeric. The union of the hands is called hasthagonti, and is the binding portion of the ceremony. Turmeric water is poured over the hands seven times from a chank or sankha shell. Seven married women then throw over the heads of the couple a mixture ofZizyphus Jujuba(borkolipathro) leaves, rice smeared with turmeric, andCynodon Dactylon(dhūba) culms. This rite is called bhondaivaro, and is performed at all auspicious ceremonies. The fingers of the bride and bridegroom are then linked together, and they are led by the wife of the bride’s brother seven times round the bedi. The priest then proclaims that the soot can soon be wiped off the cooking-pot, but the connection brought about by the marriage is enduring, and relationship is secured for seven generations. The pair are taken indoors, and fed. Theremaining days of the marriage ceremonies are given up to feasting. The remarriage of widows is permitted. A widow is expected to marry the younger brother of her deceased husband, or, with his permission, may marry whom she likes.
When a girl attains maturity, she is seated on a new mat, andZizyphus Jujubaleaves are thrown over her. This ceremony is sometimes repeated daily for six days, during which sweets, etc., are given to the girl, and women who bring presents are fed. On the seventh day, the girl is taken to a tank (pond), and bathed.
The dead are either buried or burnt. The corpse is, at the funeral, borne in the hands, or on a bier, by four men. Soon after the village boundary has been crossed, the widow of the deceased throws rice over the eyes of the corpse, and also a little fire, after taking it three times round. She usually carries with her a pot and ladle, which she throws away. If an elderly woman dies, these rites are performed by her daughter-in-law. At the burial-ground, the corpse is taken seven times round the grave, and, as it is lowered into it, those present say “Oh! trees, Oh! sky, Oh! earth, we are laying him in. It is not our fault.” When the grave has been filled in, the figures of a man and woman are drawn on it, and all throw earth over it, saying “You were living with us; now you have left us. Do not trouble the people.” On their return home, the mourners sprinkle cowdung water about the house and over their feet, and toddy is partaken of. On the following day, all the old pots are thrown away, and the agnates eat rice cooked with margosa (Melia Azadirachta) leaves. Food is offered to the dead person, either at the burial-ground or in the backyard of the house. On the tenth day, the Dhiyani,as the priest is called, is sent for, and arrives with his drum (dhiyani). A small hut is erected on a tank bund (embankment), and food cooked seven times, and offered seven times on seven fragments of pots. A new cloth is spread, and on it food, fruits, a chank shell, etc., are placed, and offered to the deceased. The various articles are put into a new pot, and the son, going into the water up to his neck, throws the pot into the air, and breaks it. The celebrants of the rite then return to the house, and stand in a row in front thereof. They are there purified by means of milk smeared over their hands by the Dhiyani. On the twelfth day, food is offered on twelve leaves.
The Bāvuris do not worship Jagannāthāswāmi, or other of the higher deities, but reverence their ancestors and the village goddesses or Tākurānis. Like other Oriya classes, the Bāvuris name their children on the twenty-first day. Opprobrious names are common among them,e.g., Ogādu (dirty fellow), Kangāli (wretched fellow), Haddia (Haddi, or sweeper caste).
Bēdar or Bōya.—“Throughout the hills,” Buchanan writes,43“northward from Capaladurga, are many cultivated spots, in which, during Tippoo’s government, were settled many Baydaru or hunters, who received twelve pagodas (£4 5s.) a year, and served as irregular troops whenever required. Being accustomed to pursue tigers and deer in the woods, they were excellent marksmen with their match-locks, and indefatigable in following their prey; which, in the time of war, was the life and property of every helpless creature that came in their way. During the wars of Hyder and his son, these men were chief instruments in the terrible depredationscommitted in the lower Carnatic. They were also frequently employed with success against the Poligars (feudal chiefs), whose followers were of a similar description.” In the Gazetteer of the Anantapur district it is noted that “the Bōyas are the old fighting caste of this part of the country, whose exploits are so often recounted in the history books. The Poligars’ forces, and Haidar Ali’s famous troops were largely recruited from these people, and they still retain a keen interest in sport and manly exercises.”
In his notes on the Bōyas, which Mr. N. E. Q. Mainwaring has kindly placed at my disposal, he writes as follows. “Although, until quite recently, many a Bōya served in the ranks of our Native army, being entered in the records thereof either under his caste title of Naidu, or under the heading of Gentu,44which was largely used in old day military records, yet this congenial method of earning a livelihood has now been swept away by a Government order, which directs that in future no Telegas shall be enlisted into the Indian army. That the Bōyas were much prized as fighting men in the stirring times of the eighteenth century is spoken to in the contemporaneous history of Colonel Wilks.45He speaks of the brave armies of the Poligars of Chitteldroog, who belonged to the Beder or Bōya race in the year 1755. Earlier, in 1750, Hyder Ali, who was then only a Naik in the service of the Mysore Rāja, used with great effect his select corps of Beder peons at the battle of Ginjee. Five years after thisbattle, when Hyder was rising to great eminence, he augmented his Beder peons, and used them as scouts for the purpose of ascertaining the whereabouts of his enemies, and for poisoning with the juice of the milk-hedge (Euphorbia Tirucalli) all wells in use by them, or in their line of march. The historian characterises them as being ‘brave and faithful thieves.’ In 1751, the most select army of Morari Row of Gooty consisted chiefly of Beder peons, and the accounts of their deeds in the field, as well as their defence of Gooty fort, which only fell after the meanness of device had been resorted to, prove their bravery in times gone by beyond doubt. There are still a number of old weapons to be found amongst the Bōyas, consisting of swords, daggers, spears, and matchlocks. None appear to be purely Bōya weapons, but they seem to have assumed the weapons of either Muhammadans or Hindus, according to which race held sway at the time. In some districts, there are still Bōya Poligars, but, as a rule, they are poor, and unable to maintain any position. Generally, the Bōyas live at peace with their neighbours, occasionally only committing a grave dacoity (robbery).46
“In the Kurnool district, they have a bad name, and many are on the police records as habitual thieves and housebreakers. They seldom stoop to lesser offences. Some are carpenters, others blacksmiths who manufacture all sorts of agricultural implements. Some, again, are engaged as watchmen, and others make excellent snares for fish out of bamboo. But the majority of them are agriculturists, and most of them work on their own putta lands. They are now a hard-working, industrious people, who have become thrifty by dint of their industry,and whose former predatory habits are being forgotten. Each village, or group of villages, submits to the authority of a headman, who is generally termed the Naidu, less commonly Dora as chieftain. In some parts of Kurnool, the headmen are called Simhasana Bōyas. The headman presides at all functions, and settles, with the assistance of the elders, any disputes that may arise in the community regarding division of property, adultery, and other matters. The headman has the power to inflict fines, the amount of which is regulated by the status and wealth of the defaulter. But it is always arranged that the penalty shall be sufficient to cover the expense of feeding the panchayatdars (members of council), and leave a little over to be divided between the injured party and the headman. In this way, the headman gets paid for his services, and practically fixes his own remuneration.”
It is stated in the Manual of the Bellary district that “of the various Hindu castes in Bellary, the Bōyas (called in Canarese Bēdars, Byēdas, or Byādās) are far the strongest numerically. Many of the Poligars whom Sir Thomas Munro found in virtual possession of the country when it was added to the Company belonged to this caste, and their irregular levies, and also a large proportion of Haidar’s formidable force, were of the same breed. Harpanahalli was the seat of one of the most powerful Poligars in the district in the eighteenth century. The founder of the family was a Bōya taliāri, who, on the subversion of the Vijayanagar dynasty, seized on two small districts near Harpanahalli. The Bōyas are perhaps the only people in the district who still retain any aptitude for manly sports. They are now for the most part cultivators and herdsmen or are engaged under Government as constables, peons, village watchmen(taliāris), and so forth. Their community provides an instructive example of the growth of caste sub-divisions. Both the Telugu-speaking Bōyas and the Canarese-speaking Bēdars are split into the two main divisions of Ūru or village men, and Myāsa or grass-land men, and each of these divisions is again sub-divided into a number of exogamous Bedagas. Four of the best known of these sub-divisions are Yemmalavaru or buffalo-men; Mandalavaru or men of the herd; Pūlavaru or flower-men, and Mīnalavaru or fish-men. They are in no way totemistic. Curiously enough, each Bedagu has its own particular god, to which its members pay special reverence. But these Bedagas bear the same names among both the Bōyas and the Bēdars, and also among both the Ūru and Myāsa divisions of both Bōyas and Bēdars. It thus seems clear that, at some distant period, all the Bōyas and all the Bēdars must have belonged to one homogeneous caste. At present, though Ūru Bōyas will marry with Ūru Bēdars and Myāsa Bōyas with Myāsa Bēdars, there is no intermarriage between Ūrus and Myāsas, whether they be Bōyas or Bēdars. Even if Ūrus and Myāsas dine together, they sit in different rows, each division by themselves. Again, the Ūrus (whether Bōyas or Bēdars) will eat chicken and drink alcohol, but the Myāsas will not touch a fowl or any form of strong drink, and are so strict in this last matter that they will not even sit on mats made of the leaf of the date-palm, the tree which in Bellary provides all the toddy. The Ūrus, moreover, celebrate their marriages with the ordinary ceremonial of the hālu-kamba or milk-post, and the surge, or bathing of the happy pair; the bride sits on a flour-grinding stone, and the bridegroom stands on a basket full of cholam (millet), and they call in Brāhmans to officiate. But the Myāsas have a simplerritual, which omits most of these points, and dispenses with the Brāhman. Other differences are that the Ūru women wear ravikkais or tight-fitting bodices, while the Myāsas tuck them under their waist-string. Both divisions eat beef, and both have a hereditary headman called the ejamān, and hereditary Dāsaris who act as their priests.”