cm.Padma Sālē159.9Sūkūn Sālē160.3Togata160.5Suka Sālē161.1Dēvēndra.—A name assumed by some Pallans, who claim to be descended from the king of the gods (dēvas).Dhabba(split bamboo).—Dhabba or Dhabbai is the name of a sub-division of Koravas, who split bamboos, and make various articles therefrom.Dhakkado.—A small mixed class of Oriya cultivators, concerning whom there is a proverb that a Dhakkado does not know his father. They are described, in the Census Report, 1891, as “a caste of cultivators found in the Jeypore agency tracts. They are said to be the offspring of a Brāhman and a Sūdra girl, and, though living on the hills, they are not an uncivilised hill tribe. Some prepare and sell the sacred thread, others are confectioners. They wear the sacred thread, and do not drink water from the hands of any except Brāhmans. Girls are married before puberty, and widow marriage is practiced. They are flesh-eaters, and their dead are usually buried.”In a note on the Dhakkados, Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao writes that “the illegitimate descendant of a Brāhman and a hill woman of the non-polluting castes is said to be known as a Dhakkado. The Dhakkados assume Brāhmanical names, but, as regards marriages, funerals, etc., follow the customs of their mother’s caste. Her caste people intermarry with her children. ADhakkado usually follows the occupation of his mother’s caste. Thus one whose mother is a Kevuto follows the calling of fishing or plying boats on rivers, one whose mother is a Bhumia is an agriculturist, and so on.”Dhakūr.—Stated, in the Manual of the Vizagapatam district, to be illegitimate children of Brāhmans, who wear the paieta (sacred thread).Dhanapāla.—A sub-division of Gollas, who guard treasure while it is in transit.Dhangar.—Dhangar, or Donigar, is recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as a Marāthi caste of shepherds and cattle-breeders. I gather, from a note45on the Dhangars of the Kanara district in the Bombay Presidency, that “the word Dhangar is generally derived from the Sanskrit dhenu, a cow. Their home speech is Marāthi, but they can speak Kanarese. They keep a special breed of cows and buffaloes, known as Dhangar mhasis and Dhangar gāis which are the largest cattle in Kanara. Many of Shivāji’s infantry were Sātāra Dhangars.”Dhaniāla(coriander).—An exogamous sept of Kamma. Dhaniāla Jāti, or coriander caste, is an opprobrious name applied to Kōmatis, indicating that, in business transactions, they must be crushed as coriander fruits are crushed before the seed is sown.Dhāre.—An exogamous sept of Kuruba. In the Canara country, the essential and binding part of the marriage ceremony is called dhāre (seeBant).Dharmarāja.—An exogamous sept of the Irulas of North Arcot. Dharmarāja was the eldest of the five Pāndavas, the heroes of the Mahābhāratha.Dhippo(light).—An exogamous sept of Bhondāri. The members thereof may not blow out lights, or extinguish them in any other way. They will not light lamps without being madi,i.e., wearing silk cloths, or cloths washed and dried after bathing.Dhōbi.—A name used for washerman by Anglo-Indians all over India. The word is said to be derived from dhōha, Sanskrit, dhāv, to wash. A whitish grey sandy efflorescence, found in many places, from which, by boiling and the addition of quicklime, an alkali of considerable strength is obtained, is called Dhōbi’s earth.46“The expression dhobie itch,” Manson writes,47“although applied to any itching ringworm-like affection of any part of the skin, most commonly refers to some form of epiphytic disease of the crutch or axilla (armpit).” The disease is very generally supposed to be communicated by clothes from the wash, but Manson is of opinion that the belief that it is contracted from clothes which have been contaminated by the washerman is probably not very well founded.Dhōbi is the name, by which the washerman caste of the Oriyas is known. “They are said,” Mr. Francis writes,48“to have come originally from Orissa. Girls are generally married before maturity, and, if this is not possible, they have to be married to a sword or a tree, before they can be wedded to a man. Their ordinary marriage ceremonies are as follows. The bridal pair bathe in water brought from seven different houses. The bridegroom puts a bangle on the bride’s arm (this is the binding part of the ceremony); the left and right wrists of the bride and bridegroom are tied together; betel leaf and nut are tied in a corner of the bride’s cloth, and amyrabolam (Terminaliafruit) in that of the bridegroom; and finally the people present in the pandal (booth) throw rice and saffron (turmeric) over them. Widows and divorced women may marry again. They are Vaishnavites, but some of them also worship Kāli or Durga. They employ Bairāgis, and occasionally Brāhmans, as their priests. They burn their dead, and perform srāddha (annual memorial ceremony). Their titles are Chetti (or Mahā Chetti) and Bēhara.” The custom of the bridal pair bathing in water from seven different houses obtains among many Oriya castes, including Brāhmans. It is known by the name of pāni-tula. The water is brought by married girls, who have not reached puberty, on the night preceding the wedding day, and the bride and bridegroom wash in it before dawn. This bath is called koili pāni snāno, or cuckoo water-bath. The koil is the Indian koel or cuckoo (Eudynamis honorata), whose crescendo cry ku-il, ku-il, is trying to the nerves during the hot season.The following proverbs49relating to washermen may be quoted:—Get a new washerman, and an old barber.The washerman knows the defects of the village (i.e., he learns a good deal about the private affairs of the various families, when receiving and delivering the clothes).When a washerman gets sick, his sickness must leave him at the stone. The stone referred to is the large stone, on which the washerman cleans cloths, and the proverb denotes that, however sick a washerman may be, his work must be done.Dhoddi.—Dhoddi, meaning a court or back-yard, cattle-pen, or sheep-fold, has been recorded as an exogamous sept of Dēvānga, Koppala Velama, Kama Sālē, Māla, and Yānādi.Dhoddiyan.—A name given by Tamilians to Jōgis.Dhollo.—Dhollo is recorded in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as the same as Doluva. A correspondent informs me that Dhollo is said to be different from Doluva.Dhōma(gnat or mosquito).—An exogamous sept of Māla.Dhondapu(Cephalandra indica).—An exogamous sept of Dēvānga. The fruit is one of the commonest of native vegetables, and cooked in curries.Dhōni(boat).—An exogamous sept of Mīla and Oruganti Kāpu. In a paper on the native vessels of South India by Mr. Edge, published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, the dhōni is described as “a vessel of ark-like form, about 70 feet long, 20 feet broad, and 11 feet deep, with a flat bottom or keel part, which at the broadest place is 7 feet.“The whole equipment of these rude vessels, as well as their construction, is the most coarse and unseaworthy that I have ever seen.” The dhōni, with masts, is represented in the ancient lead and copper coinage of Southern India.Dhor.—In the Madras Census Report, 1901, a few (164) individuals were returned as “Dhēr, a low caste of Marāthi leather workers.” They were, I gather from the Bombay Gazetteer, Dhors or tanners who dwell in various parts of the Bombay Presidency, and whose home speech, names and surnames seem to show that they have come from the Marātha country.Dhūdala(calves).—An exogamous sept of Thūmati Golla.Dhudho(milk).—A sept of Omanaito.Dhuggāni(money).—An exogamous sept of Dēvānga.Dhūliya.—Dhūliya or Dūlia is a small class of Oriya cultivators, some of whom wear the sacred thread, and employ Boishnobs as their priests. Marriage before puberty is not compulsory, and widows can remarry. They eat flesh. The dead are cremated.50The name is said to be derived from dhuli, dust, with which those who work in the fields are covered. Dhūliya also means carriers of dhulis (dhoolies), which are a form of palanquin.Didāvi.—A sub-division of Poroja.Digambara(space-clad or sky-clad,i.e., nude).—One of the two main divisions of the Jains. The Digambaras are said51to “regard absolute nudity as the indispensable sign of holiness, though the advance of civilisation has compelled them to depart from the practice of their theory.”Dīvar.—SeeDēva.Diyāsi.—An exogamous sept of Dandāsi. The members thereof show special reverence for the sun, and cloths, mokkutos (forehead chaplets), garlands, and other articles to be used by the bride and bridegroom at a wedding are placed outside the house, so that they may be exposed to it.Dolaiya.—A title of Doluva and Odia.Dolobēhara.—The name of headmen or their assistants among many Oriya castes. In some cases,e.g., among the Haddis, the name is used as a title by families, members of which are headmen.Doluva.—The Doluvas of Ganjam are, according to the Madras Census Report, 1891, “supposed to be the descendants of the old Rājahs by their concubines, and were employed as soldiers and attendants. The name issaid to be derived from the Sanskrit dola, meaning army.” The Doluvas claim to be descended from the Puri Rājahs by their concubines, and say that some of them were employed as sirdars and paiks under these Rājahs. They are said to have accompanied a certain Puri Rājah who came south to wage war, and to have settled in Ganjam. They are at the present day mainly engaged in agriculture, though some are traders, bricklayers, cart-drivers, etc. The caste seems to be divided into five sections, named Kondaiyito, Lenka, Rabba, Pottia, and Beharania, of which the first two are numerically the strongest and most widely distributed. Kondaiyito is said to be derived from kondo, an arrow, and to indicate warrior. The Kondaiyitos sometimes style themselves Rājah Doluvas, and claim superiority over the other sections. It is noted, in the Madras Census Report, 1891, that “Oriya Zamindars get wives from this sub-division, but the men of it cannot marry into the Zamindar’s families. They wear the sacred thread, and are writers.” In former days, the title writer was applied to the junior grade of Civil Servants of the East India Company. It is now used to denote a copying clerk in an office.Various titles occur among members of the caste,e.g., Bissoyi, Biswālo, Dolei, Jenna, Kottiya, Mahanti, Majhi, Nāhako, Porida, Rāvuto, Sāmulo, and Sāni.The ordinary caste council system, with a hereditary headman, seems to be absent among the Doluvas, and the affairs of the caste are settled by leading members thereof.The Doluvas are Paramarthos, following the Chaitanya form of Vaishnavism, and wearing a rosary of tulsi (Ocimum sanctum) beads. They further worship various Tākurānis (village deities), among which are Kālva, Bāgadēvi, Kotari, Mahēswari, and Manickēswari. Theyare in some places very particular regarding the performance of srādh (memorial ceremony), which is carried out annually in the following manner. On the night before the srādh day, a room is prepared for the reception of the soul of the deceased. This room is called pitru bharano (reception of the ancestor). The floor thereof is cleansed with cow-dung water, and a lamp fed with ghī (clarified butter) is placed on it by the side of a plank. On this plank a new cloth is laid for the reception of various articles for worship,e.g., sacred grass,Zizyphus jujubaleaves, flowers, etc. In front of the plank a brass vessel, containing water and a tooth brush ofAchyranthes asperaroot, is placed. The dead person’s son throws rice andZizyphusleaves into the air, and calls on the deceased to come and give a blessing on the following day. The room is then locked, and the lamp kept burning in it throughout the night. On the following day, all old pots are thrown away and, after a small space has been cleaned on the floor of the house, a pattern is drawn thereon with flour in the form of a square or oblong with twelve divisions. On each division a jak (Artocarpus integrifolia) leaf is placed, and on each leaf the son puts cooked rice and vegetables. A vessel containingAchyranthesroot, and a plank with a new cloth on it, are set by the side of the pattern. After worship has been performed and food offered, the cloth is presented to a Brāhman, and the various articles used in the ceremonial are thrown into water.Dōmb.—The name Dōmb or Dōmbo is said to be derived from the word dumba, meaning devil, in reference to the thieving propensities of the tribe. The Dōmbas, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,52“are a Dravidiancaste of weavers and menials, found in the hill tracts of Vizagapatam. This caste appears to be an offshoot of the Dōm caste of Bengal, Behār, and the North-Western Provinces. Like the Dōms, the Dōmbas are regarded with disgust, because they eat beef, pork, horse-flesh, rats, and the flesh of animals which have died a natural death, and both are considered to be Chandālas or Pariahs by the Bengālis and the Uriyas. The Dōmbs weave the cloths and blankets worn by the hill people, but, like the Pariahs of the plains, they are also labourers, scavengers, etc. Some of them are extensively engaged in trade, and they have, as a rule, more knowledge of the world than the ryots who despise them. They are great drunkards.” In the Census Report, 1871, it was noted that “in many villages, the Dōms carry on the occupation of weaving, but, in and around Jaipur, they are employed as horse-keepers, tom-tom beaters, scavengers, and in other menial duties. Notwithstanding their abject position in the social scale, some signs of progress may be detected amongst them. They are assuming the occupation, in many instances, of petty hucksters, eking out a livelihood by taking advantage of the small difference in rates between market and market.”“The Dōmbs,” Mr. F. Fawcett writes,53“are an outcast jungle people, who inhabit the forests on the high lands fifty to eighty or a hundred miles from the east coast, about Vizagapatam. Being outcast, they are never allowed to live within a village, but have their own little hamlet adjoining a village proper, inhabited by people of various superior castes. It is fair to say that the Dōmbs are akin to the Pānos of the adjoiningKhond country, a Pariah folk who live amongst the Khonds, and used to supply the human victims for the Meriah sacrifices. Indeed, the Khonds, who hold them in contemptuous inferiority, call them Dōmbas as a sort of alternative title to Pānos. The Paidis of the adjoining Savara or Saora country are also, doubtless, kinsmen of the Dōmbs. [The same man is said to be called Paidi by Telugus, Dōmbo by the Savaras, and Pāno by the Khonds. It is noted in the Census Report, 1881, that the Pāno quarters in Khond villages are called Dōmbo Sai.] In most respects their condition is a very poor one. Though they live in the best part of the Presidency for game, they know absolutely nothing of hunting, and cannot even handle a bow and arrow. They have, however, one respectable quality, industry, and are the weavers, traders, and money-lenders of the hills, being very useful as middlemen between the Khonds, Sauras, Gadabas, and other hill people on the one hand, and the traders of the plains on the other. I am informed, on good authority, that there are some Dōmbs who rise higher than this, but cannot say whether these are, or are not crosses with superior races. Most likely they are, for most of the Dōmbs are arrant thieves. It was this propensity for thieving, in fact, which had landed some hundreds of them in the jail at Vizagapatam when I visited that place, and gave me an opportunity of recording their measurements.” The averages of the more important of these measurements are as follows:—cm.Stature161.9Cephalic length18.8Cephalic breadth14.3Cephalic index75.6Nasal index86.5It is noted by the Missionary Gloyer54that the colour of the skin of the Dōmbs varies from very dark to yellow, and their height from that of an Aryan to the short stature of an aboriginal, and that there is a corresponding variation in facial type.For the following note on the Dōmbs, I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. They are the weavers, traders, musicians, beggars, and money-lenders of the hills. Some own cattle, and cultivate. The hill people in the interior are entirely dependent on them for their clothing. A few Dōmb families are generally found to each village. They act as middlemen between the hill people and the Kōmati traders. Their profits are said to be large, and their children are, in some places, found attending hill schools. As musicians, they play on the drum and pipe. They are the hereditary musicians of the Mahārāja of Jeypore. A Dōmb beggar, when engaged in his professional calling, goes about from door to door, playing on a little pipe. Their supposed powers over devils and witches result in their being consulted when troubles appear. Though the Dōmbs are regarded as a low and polluting class, they will not eat at the hands of Kōmatis, Bhondāris, or Ghāsis. Some Dōmbas have become converts to Christianity through missionary influence.In the Madras Census Report, 1891, the following sections of the Dōmbs are recorded:—Onomia, Odia, Māndiri, Mirgām, and Kohara. The sub-divisions, however, seem to be as follows:—Mirigāni, Kobbiriya, Odiya, Sōdabisiya, Māndiri, and Andiniya. There are also various septs, of which the following have been recorded among the Odiyas:—Bhāg (tiger), Bālu (bear),Nāg (cobra), Hanumān (the monkey god), Kochchipo (tortoise), Bengri (frog), Kukra (dog), Surya (sun), Matsya (fish), and Jaikonda (lizard). It is noted by Mr. Fawcett that “monkeys, frogs, and cobras are taboo, and also the sunāri tree (Ochna squarrosa). The big lizard, cobras, frogs, and the crabs which are found in the paddy fields, and are usually eaten by jungle people, may not be eaten.”When a girl reaches puberty, she remains outside the hut for five days, and then bathes at the nearest stream, and is presented with a new cloth. In honour of the event, drink is distributed among her relatives. Girls are usually married after puberty. A man can claim his paternal aunt’s daughter in marriage. When a proposal of marriage is to be made, the suitor carries some pots of liquor, usually worth two rupees, to the girl’s house, and deposits them in front of it. If her parents consent to the match, they take the pots inside, and drink some of the liquor. After some time has elapsed, more liquor, worth five rupees, is taken to the girl’s house. A reduction in the quantity of liquor is made when a man is proposing for the hand of his paternal aunt’s daughter, and, on the second occasion, the liquor will only be worth three rupees. A similar reduction is made in the jholla tonka, or bride price. On the wedding day, the bridegroom goes, accompanied by his relations, to the bride’s home, where, at the auspicious moment fixed by the Desāri, his father presents new cloths to himself and the bride, which they put on. They stand before the hut, and on each is placed a cloth with a myrabolam (Terminalia) seed, rice, and a few copper coins tied up in it. The bridegroom’s right little finger is linked with the left little finger of the bride, and they enter the hut. On the following day, the newlymarried couple repair to the home of the bridegroom. On the third day, they are bathed in turmeric water, a pig is killed, and a feast is held. On the ninth day, the knots in the cloths, containing the myrabolams, rice, and coins, are untied, and the marriage ceremonies are at an end. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and a younger brother usually marries the widow of his elder brother.It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “some of the Dōmbus of the Parvatipur Agency follow many of the customs of the low-country castes, including mēnarikam (marriage with the maternal uncle’s daughter), and say they are the same as the Paidis (or Paidi Mālas) of the plains adjoining, with whom they intermarry.”The corpses of the more prosperous Dōmbs are usually cremated. The wood of the sunāri tree and relli (Cassia fistula) may not be used for the pyre. The son or husband of a deceased person has his head, moustache, and armpits shaved on the tenth day.Dōmb women, and women of other tribes in the Jeypore Agency tracts, wear silver ear ornaments called nāgul, representing a cobra just about to strike with tongue protruded. Similar ornaments of gold, called nāga pōgulu (cobra-shaped earrings), are worn by women of some Telugu castes in the plains of Vizagapatam.The personal names of the Dōmbs are, as among other Oriya castes, often those of the day of the week on which the individual was born.Concerning the religion of the Dōmbs, Mr. Fawcett notes that “their chief god—probably an ancestral spirit—is called Kaluga. There is one in each village, in the headman’s house. The deity is represented by a pie piece (copper coin), placed in or over a new earthenpot smeared with rice and turmeric powder. During worship, a silk cloth, a new cloth, or a wet cloth may be worn, but one must not dress in leaves. Before the mangoes are eaten, the first-fruits are offered to the moon, at the full moon of the month Chitra.”“When,” Gloyer writes, “a house has to be built, the first thing is to select a favourable spot, to which few evil spirits (dūmas) resort. At this spot they put, in several places, three grains of rice arranged in such a way that the two lower grains support the upper one. To protect the grains, they pile up stones round them, and the whole is lightly covered with earth. When, after some time, they find on inspection that the upper grain has fallen off, the spot is regarded as unlucky, and must not be used. If the position of the grains remains unchanged, the omen is regarded as auspicious. They drive in the first post, which must have a certain length, say of five, seven, or nine ells, the ell being measured from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow. The post is covered on the top with rice straw, leaves, and shrubs, so that birds may not foul it, which would be regarded as an evil omen. [In Madras, a story is current, with reference to the statue of Sir Thomas Munro, that he seized upon all the rice depôts, and starved the people to death by selling rice in egg-shells at one shell for a rupee, and, to punish him, the Government erected the statue in an open place, so that the birds of the air might insult him by polluting his face.] In measuring the house, odd numbers play an important part. The number four (pura, or full number), however, forms the proper measurement, whereby they measure the size of the house, according to the pleasure of the builder. But now the Dissary (Dēsāri) decides whether the house shall be built on the nandi, dua, or tia system, nandisignifying one, dua two, and tia three. This number of ells must be added to the measurement of the house. Supposing that the length of the house is twelve ells, then it will be necessary to add one ell according to the nandi system, so that the length amounts to thirteen ells. The number four can only be used for stables.”“The Dūmas,” Gloyer continues, “are represented as souls of the deceased, which roam about without a home, so as to cause to mankind all possible harm. At the birth of a child, the Dūma must be invited in a friendly manner to provide the child with a soul, and protect it against evil. For this purpose, a fowl is killed on the ninth day, a bone (beinknochen) detached, and pressed in to the hand of the infant. The relations are seated in solemn silence, and utter the formula:—When grandfather, grandmother, father, or brother comes, throw away the bone, and we will truly believe it. No sooner does the sprawling and excited infant drop the bone, than the Dūmas are come, and boisterous glee prevails. The Dūmas occasionally give vent to their ghostly sounds, and cause no little consternation among the inmates of a house, who hide from fear. Cunning thieves know how to rob the superstitious by employing instruments with a subdued tone (dumpftönende), or by emitting deep sounds from the chest. The yearly sacrifice to a Dūma consists of a black fowl and strong brandy. If a member of a family falls ill, an extraordinary sacrifice has to be offered up. The Dūma is not regarded only as an evil spirit, but also as a tutelary deity. He protects one against the treacherous attacks of witches. A place is prepared for him in the door-hinge, or a fishing-net, wherein he lives, is placed over the door. The witches must count all the knots of the net, before they can enter. Devil worship is closely connected with that of theDūma. The devil’s priests, and in rare cases priestesses, effect communion between the people and the Dūmas by a sort of possession, which the spirit, entering into them, is said to give rise to. This condition, which is produced by intoxicating drink and the fumes of burning incense, gives rise to revolting cramp-like contortions, and muscular quiverings. In this state, they are wont to communicate what sacrifices the spirits require. On special occasions, they fall into a frenzied state, in which they cut their flesh with sharp instruments, or pass long, thin iron bars through the tongue and cheeks, during which operation no blood must flow. For this purpose, the instruments are rubbed all over with some blood-congealing material or sap. They also affect sitting on a sacred swing, armed with long iron nails. [Mr. G. F. Paddison informs me that he once saw a villager in the Vizagapatam district, sitting outside the house, while groans proceeded from within. He explained that he was ill, and his wife was swinging on nails with their points upwards, to cure him.] The devil called Jom Duto, or messenger of the going, is believed to be a one-eyed, limping, black individual, whose hair is twisted into a frightfully long horn, while one foot is very long, and the other resembles the hoof of a buffalo. He makes his appearance at the death-bed, in order to drag his victim to the realm of torture.”Children are supposed to be born without souls, and to be afterwards chosen as an abode by the soul of an ancestor. The coming of the ancestor is signalised by the child dropping a chicken bone which has been thrust into its hand, and much rejoicing follows among the assembled relations.55Mr. Paddison tells me that some Dōmbs are reputed to be able to pour blazing oil over their bodies, without suffering any hurt; and one man is said to have had a miraculous power of hardening his skin, so that any one could have a free shot at him, without hurting him. He further narrates that, at Sujanakōta in the Vizagapatam district, the Dōmbs, notwithstanding frequent warnings, put devils into two successive schoolmasters.Various tattoo devices, borne by the Dōmbs examined by Mr. Fawcett, are figured and described by him. “These patterns,” he writes, “were said to be, one and all, purely ornamental, and not in any way connected with totems, or tribal emblems.” Risley, however,56regards “four out of the twelve designs as pretty closely related to the religion and mythology of the tribe; two are totems and two have reference to the traditional avocations. Nos. 11 and 12 represent a classical scene in Dōm folk-lore, the story of King Haris-Chandra, who was so generous that he gave all he had to the poor and sold himself to a Dōm at Benares, who employed him to watch his cremation ground at night. While he was thus engaged, his wife, who had also been sold for charitable purposes, came to burn the body of her son. She had no money to pay her fees, and Haris-Chandra, not knowing her in the darkness, turned her away. Fortunately the sun rose; mutual recognition followed; the victims of promiscuous largesse were at once remarried, and Vishnu intervened to restore the son to life. Tatu No. 11 shows Haris-Chandra watching the burning-ground by moonlight; the wavy line is the Ganges; the dots are the trees on the other side; the strokes on either side of the king are the logs of wood,which he is guarding. In No. 12 we see the sun rising, its first ray marked with a sort of fork, and the meeting of the king and queen.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “throughout the Jeypore country proper, the Dombus (and some Ghāsis) are by far the most troublesome class. Their favourite crime is cattle-theft for the sake of the skins, but, in 1902, a Dombu gang in Naurangpūr went so far as to levy blackmail over a large extent of country, and defy for some months all attempts at capture. The loss of their cattle exasperates the other hill folk to the last degree, and, in 1899, the Naiks (headmen) of sixteen villages in the north of Jeypore tāluk headed an organized attack on the houses of the Dombus, which, in the most deliberate manner, they razed to the ground in some fifteen villages. The Dombus had fortunately got scent of what was coming, and made themselves scarce, and no bloodshed occurred. In the next year, some of the Naiks of the Rāmagiri side of Jeypore tāluk sent round a jack branch, a well-recognised form of the fiery cross, summoning villagers other than Dombus to assemble at a fixed time and place, but this was luckily intercepted by the police. The Agent afterwards discussed the whole question with the chief Naiks of Jeypore and South Naurangpūr. Theyhad no opinion of the deterrent effects of mere imprisonment on the Dombus. ‘You fatten them, and send them back,’ they said, and suggested that a far better plan would be to cut off their right hands. [It is noted, in the Vizagapatam Manual, 1869, that in cases of murder, the Rājah of Jeypore generally had the man’s hands, nose, and ears cut off, but, after all that, he seldom escaped the deceased’s relatives.] They eventually proposed a plan of checking the cattle-thefts, which is now being followed in much of that country. The Bāranaiks, or heads of groups of villages, were each given brands with distinctive letters and numbers, and required to brand the skins of all animals which had died a natural death or been honestly killed; and the possession by Dombus, skin merchants, or others, of unbranded skins is now considered a suspicious circumstance, the burden of explaining which lies upon the possessor. Unless this, or some other way of checking the Dombus’ depredations proves successful, serious danger exists that the rest of the people will take the matter into their own hands and, as the Dombus in the Agency number over 50,000, this would mean real trouble.” It is further recorded57that the Paidis (Paidi Mālas), who often commit dacoities on the roads, “are connected with the Dombus of the Rāyagada and Gunupur tāluks, who are even worse. These people dacoit houses at night in armed gangs of fifty or more, with their faces blacked to prevent recognition. Terrifying the villagers into staying quiet in their huts, they force their way into the house of some wealthy person (for choice the local Sondi, liquor-seller and sowcar,58usually the only man worth looting in an agency village, and a shark who gets little pity from hisneighbours when forced to disgorge), tie up the men, rape the women, and go off with everything of value. Their favourite method of extracting information regarding concealed property is to sprinkle the houseowner with boiling oil.”Dommara.—The Dommaras are a tribe of tumblers, athletes, and mountebanks, some of whom wander about the country, while others have settled down as agricultural labourers, or make combs out of the wood ofElæodendron glaucum,Ixora parviflora,Pavetta indica,Ficus bengalensis, etc., which they sell to wholesale merchants. They are, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,59“a nomad class of acrobats, who, in many respects, recall the gipsies to mind, and raise the suggestion that their name may possibly be connected with the Dōms of Northern India. They speak Telugu, Marāthi, and Hindustani, but not generally Tamil. They are skilful jugglers, and both men and women are very clever tumblers and tight-rope dancers, exhibiting their feats as they travel about the country. Some of them sell date mats and baskets, some trade in pigs, while others, settled in villages, cultivate lands. In social position they rank just above the Pariahs and Mādigas. They profess to be Vaishnavites [and Saivites]. Infant marriage is not practiced. Widow remarriage is freely allowed, and polygamy is common. Their marriage tie is very loose, and their women often practice prostitution. They are a predatory class, great drunkards, and of most dissolute habits. The dead are generally buried, and [on the day of the final death ceremonies] cooked rice is thrown out to be eaten by crows. In the matter of food, they eat all sorts of animals, including pigs, cats, andcrows.” When a friend was engaged in making experiments in connection with snake venom, some Dommaras asked for permission to unbury the corpses of snakes and mungooses for the purpose of food.Ārē Dommara acrobat.Ārē Dommara acrobat.The Dommaras are, in the Mysore Census Report, 1901, summed up as being buffoons, tumblers, acrobats, and snakecharmers, who travel from place to place, and earn a precarious living by their exhibitions. In the Madras Census Report, 1901, Domban, Kalaikūttādi (pole-dancer), and Ārya Kūttādi, are given as synonyms of Dommara. The Kūttādi are summed up, in the Tanjore Manual, as vagabond dancers, actors, pantomimists, and marionette exhibitors, who hold a very low position in the social scale, and always perform in public streets and bazaars.By Mr. F. S. Mullaly60the Dommaras are divided into Reddi or Kāpu (i.e., cultivators) and Āray (Marātha). “The women,” he writes, “are proficient in making combs of horn and wood, and implements used by weavers. These they hawk about from place to place, to supplement the profits they derive from their exhibitions of gymnastic feats. In addition to performing conjuring tricks, rope-dancing and the like, the Dommaras hunt, fish, make mats, and rear donkeys and pigs. The head of the tribe is called the Mutli Guru. He is their high priest, and exercises supreme jurisdiction over them both in spiritual and temporal matters. His head-quarters is Chitvēl in the Cuddapah district. The legend regarding the office of the Mutli Guru is as follows. At Chitvēl, or as it was then known Mutli, there once lived a king, who called together a gathering of all the gymnasts among his subjects. Several classes were represented.Pōlērigādu, a Reddi Dommara, so pleased the king that he was presented with a ring, and a royal edict was passed that the wearer of the ring and his descendants should be the head of the Dommara class. The ring then given is said to be the same that is now worn by the head of the tribe at Chitvēl, which bears an inscription in Telugu declaring that the wearer is the high-priest or guru of all the Dommaras. The office is hereditary. The dwellings of the Dommaras are somewhat similar to those of the Koravars and Joghis, made of palmyra leaves plaited into mats with seven strands. These huts, or gudisays, are located on the outskirts of villages, and carried on the backs of donkeys when on the march. Stolen cloths, unless of value, are not as a rule sold, but concealed in the packs of their donkeys, and after a time worn. The Dommaras are addicted to dacoity, robbery, burglary, and thefts. The instrument used by them is unlike those used by other criminal classes: it is of iron, about a foot long, and with a chisel-shaped point. As cattle and sheep lifters they are expert, and they have their regular receivers at most of the cattle fairs throughout the Presidency.”It is noted, in the Nellore Manual, that the Dommaras “are stated by the Nellore Tahsildar to possess mirāsi rights in some villages; that I take to mean that there is, in some villages, a customary contribution for tumblers and mendicants, which, according to Wilson, was made in Mysore the pretext for a tax named Dombar-lingada-vira-kaniki. This tax, under the name Dombar tafrik, was levied in Venkatagiri in 1801.” In the Madura district, Dommaras are found in some villages formerly owned by zamindars, and they call themselves children of the zamindars, by whom they were probably patronised.Being a criminal class, the Dommaras have a thief’s language of their own, of which the following are examples:—Bidam vadu, Dommara.Poothi, policeman.Marigam, pig.Goparam, seven.Dāsa-masa, prostitute.Kopparam, salt.Kaljodu, goldsmith.The Dommaras are said to receive into their community children of other castes, and women of doubtful morals, and to practice the custom of making Basavis (dedicated prostitutes).The Telugu Dommaras give as their gōtra Salava patchi, the name of a mythological bird. At times of marriage, they substitute a turmeric-dyed string consisting of 101 threads, called bondhu, for the golden tāli or bottu. The marriage ceremonies of the Ārē Dommaras are supervised by an old Basavi woman, and the golden marriage badge is tied round the bride’s neck by a Basavi.Ārē Dommara acrobat.Ārē Dommara acrobat.A Dommara, whom I interviewed at Coimbatore, carried a cotton bag containing a miscellaneous assortment of rubbish used in his capacity as medicine man and snake-charmer, which included a collection of spurious jackal horns (nari kompu), the hairs round which were stained with turmeric. To prove the genuineness thereof, he showed me not only the horn, but also the feet with nails complete, as evidence that the horns were not made from the nails. Being charged with manufacturing the horns, he swore, by placing his hand on the head of a child who accompanied him, that he was not deceiving me. The largest of the horns in his bag, he gravely informed me, was from a jackal which he dug out of its hole on the last new moon night. The possessors of such horns, he assured me, do not go out with thepack, and rarely leave their holes except to feed on dew, field rats, etc. These spurious horns are regarded as a talisman, and it is believed that he who owns one can command the realisation of every wish. (SeeKuruvikkāran.) An iron ring, which the Dommara was wearing on his wrist, was used as a cure for hernia, being heated and applied as a branding agent over the inguinal region. Lamp oil is then rubbed over the burn, and a secret medicine, mixed with fowl’s egg, administered. The ring was, he said, an ancestral heir-loom, and as such highly prized. To cure rheumatism in the big joints, he resorted to an ingenious form of dry cupping. A small incision is made with a piece of broken glass over the affected part, and the skin damped with water. The distal end of a cow’s horn, of which the tip has been removed, and plugged with wax, does duty for the cup. A hole is pierced through the wax with an iron needle, and, the horn being placed over the seat of disease, the air is withdrawn from it by suction with the mouth, and the hole in the wax stopped up. As the air is removed from the cavity of the horn, the skin rises up within it. To remove the horn, it is only necessary to readmit air by once more boring a hole through the wax. In a bad case, as many as three horns may be applied to the affected part. The Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford possesses dry-cupping apparatus, made of cow horn, from Mirzapur in Northern India and from Natal, and of antelope horn from an unrecorded locality in India. In cases of scorpion sting the Dommara rubbed up patent boluses with human milk or milk of the milk-hedge plant (Euphorbia Tirucalli), and applied them to the part. For chest pains he prescribed red ochre, and for infantile diseases myrabolam (Terminalia) fruits mixed with water. In cases ofsnake-bite, a black stone, said to be made of various drugs mixed together, and burnt, is placed over the seat of the bite, and will, it was stated, drop off of its own accord as soon as it has absorbed all the poison. It is then put into milk or water to extract the poison, and the fluid is thrown away as being dangerous to life if swallowed. As a remedy for the bite of a mad dog, a plant, which is kept a secret, is mixed with the milk of a white goat, pepper, garlic, and other ingredients, and administered internally. A single dose is said to effect a cure.At Tarikēri in Mysore, a wandering troupe of Ārē (Marātha) Dommaras performed before me. The women were decorated with jewels and flowers, and carried bells on their ankles. The men had a row of bells attached all round the lower edge of their short drawers. Before the performance commenced, a Pillayar (Ganēsa) was made with cowdung, and saluted. The entertainment took place in the open air amid the beating of drums, whistling, singing, and dialogue. The jests and antics of the equivalent of the circus clown were a source of much joy to the throng of villagers who collected to witness the tamāsha (spectacle). One of the principal performers, in the waits between his turns, played the drum, or took a suck at a hooka (tobacco pipe) which was passed round among the members of the troupe. The entertainment, in which both men and women took part, consisted of various acrobatic feats, turning summersaults and catherine wheels, stilt-walking, and clever feats on the tight rope. Finally a man, climbing up a lofty bamboo pole, spun himself rapidly round and round on the top of it by means of a socket in an iron plate tied to his loin cloth, into which a spike in the pole fitted.Dondia.—A title of Gaudo.Donga Dāsari.—Dāsari (servant of the god), Mr. Francis writes,61“in the strict sense of the word, is a religious mendicant of the Vaishnavite sect, who has formally devoted himself to an existence as such, and been formally included in the mendicant brotherhood by being branded on the shoulders with Vaishnavite symbols.” Far different are the Donga, or thief Dāsaris, who receive their name from the fact that “the men and women disguise themselves as Dāsaris, with perpendicular Vaishnava marks on their foreheads, and, carrying a lamp (Garuda kambum), a gong of bell-metal, a small drum called jagata, and a tuft of peacock feathers, go begging in the villages, and are at times treated with the sumptuous meals, including cakes offered to them as the disciples of Venkatēsvarlu.62”In an interesting article on the Donga Dāsaris, Mr. S. M. Natesa Sastri writes as follows.63“Quite opposed to the gudi (temple) Dāsaris are Donga Dāsaris. They are the most dreaded of the criminal classes in the Bellary district. In the early years of their settlement in Bellary, these Donga Dāsaris were said to have practiced kidnapping boys and girls of other castes to strengthen their number, and even now, as the practice stands, any person can become a Donga Dāsari though very few would like to become one. But, for all that, the chief castes who furnished members to this brotherhood of robbery were the scum of the Lingayats and the Kabbēras. Of course, none of the respectable members of these castes would join them, and only those who were excommunicated found a ready home among theseDonga Dāsaris. Sometimes Muhammadan budmāshes (bad-māsh, evil means of livelihood) and the worst characters from other castes, also become Donga Dāsaris. The way an alien is made a Donga Dāsari is as follows. The regular Donga Dāsaris take the party who wants to enter their brotherhood to the side of a river, make him bathe in oil, give him a new cloth, hold a council, and give a feast. They burn a twig of the sami (Prosopis spicigera) or margosa (Melia Azadirachta) tree, and slightly burn the tongue of the party who has joined them. This is the way of purification and acceptance of every new member, who, soon after the tongue-burning ceremony, is given a seat in the general company, and made to partake of the common feast. The Donga Dāsaris talk both Telugu and Kanarese. They have only two bedagas or family names, called Sunna Akki (thin rice) and Ghantelavāru (men of the bell). As the latter is a family name of the Kabbēras, it is an evidence that members of the latter community have joined the Donga Dāsaris. Even now Donga Dāsaris intermarry with Kabbēras,i.e., they accept any girl from a Kabbēra family in marriage to one of their sons, but do not give one of their daughters in marriage to a Kabbēra boy. Hanumān is their chief god. Venkatēsa, an incarnation of Vishnu, is also worshipped by many. But, in every one of their villages, they have a temple dedicated to their village goddess Huligavva or Ellamma, and it is only before these goddesses that they sacrifice sheep or fowls. Vows are undertaken for these village goddesses when children fall ill. In addition to this, these Donga Dāsaris are notorious for taking vows before starting on a thieving expedition, and the way these ceremonies are gone through is as follows. The gang, before starting on athieving expedition, proceed to a jungle near their village in the early part of the night, worship their favourite goddesses Huligavva or Ellamma, and sacrifice a sheep or fowl before her. They place one of their turbans on the head of the sheep or fowl that was sacrificed, as soon as the head falls on the ground. If the turban turns to the right, it is considered a good sign, the goddess having permitted them to proceed on the expedition; if to the left, they return home that night. Hanumān is also consulted in such expeditions, and the way in which it is done is as follows. They go to a Hanumān temple which is near their village, and, after worshipping him, garland him with a wreath of flowers. The garland hangs on both sides of the neck. If any flowers on the right side drop down first, it is considered as a permission granted by the god to start on plundering expeditions, and, conversely, these expeditions are never undertaken if any flowers happen to drop from the left side first. The Donga Dāsaris start on their thieving raids with their whole family, wife and children following. They are the great experts in house-breaking and theft, and children are taught thieving by their mothers when they are five or six years old. The mother takes her boy or girl to the nearest market, and shows the child some cloth or vessel, and asks it to bring it away. When it fails, it is thrashed, and, when stroke upon stroke falls upon its back, the only reply it is taught to give is that it knows nothing. This is considered to be the reply which the child, when it grows up to be a man or woman, has to give to the police authorities when it is caught in some crime and thrashed by them to confess. Whenever the Donga Dāsaris are caught by the police, they give false names and false castes. They have a cipher language among themselves. The DongaDāsari woman is very loose, but, if she go astray with a Brāhman, Lingayat, Kabbēra, Kuruba, Upparava, or Rājput, her tongue is burnt, and she is taken back into the community. Widow remarriage freely prevails. They avoid eating beef and pork, but have no objection to other kinds of flesh.”Donga Oddē.—The name for Oddēs who practice thieving as a profession.Dongayato.—A sub-division of Gaudo.Dongrudiya.—A sub-division of Māli.Dora.—Dora, meaning lord, has been returned as the title of numerous classes, which include Bōya, Ekāri, Jātāpu, Konda Dora, Mutrācha, Patra, Telaga, Velama, and Yānāti. The hill Kois or Koyis of the Godāvari district are known as Koi Dora or Doralu (lords). I am told that, in some parts of the Telugu country, if one hears a native referred to as Dora, he will generally turn out to be a Velama; and that there is the following gradation in the social scale:—Velama Dora = Velama Esquire.Kamma Vāru = Mr. Kamma.Kapu = Plain Kāpu, without an honorific suffix.In Southern India, Dorai or Durai (Master) is the equivalent of the northern Sāhib, and Dorasāni (Mistress) of Memsāhib.It is noted by Sir A. J. Arbuthnot64that “the appellation by which Sir Thomas Munro was most commonly known in the Ceded districts was that of Colonel Dora. And to this day it is considered a sufficient answer to enquiries regarding the reason for any Revenue Rule, that it was laid down by the Colonel Dora.”Dorabidda, or children of chiefs, is the name by which Bōyas, who claim to be descended from Poligars (feudal chiefs) call themselves.Drāvida.—A sub-division of Kamsala. South Indian Brāhmans are called Drāvidas.Dūbaduba.—Recorded, at times of census, as an Oriya form of Budubudukala.Duddu(money).—An exogamous sept of Māla.Dūdēkula.—The Dūdēkulas are described by Mr. H. A. Stuart65as “Muhammadans who have taken to the trade of cotton-cleaning (dūde, cotton; ekula, to clean). By the Tamils they are called Panjāri or Panjukotti, which have the same significance. Though Muhammadans, they have adopted or retained many of the customs of the Hindus around them, tying a tāli to the bride at marriage, being very ignorant of the Muhammadan religion, and even joining in Hindu worship as far as allowable. Circumcision is, however, invariable, and they are much given to the worship of Muhammadan saints. In dress they resemble the Hindus, and often shave off the beard, but do not leave a single lock of hair upon the head, as most Hindus do. Over three hundred Hindus have returned their caste as either Dūdēkula or Panjāri, but these are probably members of other castes, who call themselves Dūdēkula as they are engaged in cotton-cleaning.”The Dūdēkulas are described by Mr. W. Francis66as “a Muhammadan caste of cotton-cleaners, and rope and tape-makers. They are either converts to Islām, or the progeny of unions between Musalmans and the women of the country. Consequently they generally speak the Dravidian languages—either Canarese or Telugu—butsome of them speak Hindustāni also. Their customs are a mixture of those of the Musalmans and the Hindus. Inheritance is apparently according to Muhammadan law. They pray in mosques, and circumcise their boys, and yet some of them observe the Hindu festivals. They worship their tools at Bakrid and not at the Dasara; they raise the azān or Muhammadan call to prayers at sunset, and they pray at the tombs of Musalman saints.” In the Vizagapatam district, the Dūdēkulas are described as beating cotton, and blowing horns.For the following note on the Dūdēkulas of the Ceded Districts, I am indebted to Mr. Haji Khaja Hussain. They claim Bava Faqrud-dīn Pīr of Penukonda in the Anantapur district as their patron saint. Large numbers of Muhammadans, including Dūdēkulas, collect at the annual festival (mēla) at his shrine, and offer their homage in the shape of a fatiha. This, meaning opener, is the name of the first chapter of the Korān, which is repeated when prayers are offered for the souls of the departed. For this ceremony a pilau, made of flesh, rice and ghī (clarified butter) is prepared, and the Khāzi repeats the chapter, and offers the food to the soul of the deceased saint or relation.The story of Faqrud-dīn Pīr is as follows. He was born in A.H. 564 (about A.D. 1122), and was King of Seistan in Persia. One day, while he was administering justice, a merchant brought some horses before him for sale. His attention was diverted, and he became for a time absorbed in contemplation of the beauty of one of the horses. Awakening from his reverie, he blamed himself for allowing his thoughts to wander when he was engaged in the most sacred of his duties as a king. He summoned a meeting of all the learned moulvis in his kingdom, and enquired of them what was the penaltyfor his conduct. They unanimously decreed that he should abdicate. Accordingly he placed his brother on the throne, and, becoming a dervish, came to India, and wandered about in the jungles. Eventually he arrived at Trichinopoly, and there met the celebrated saint Tabri-Ālam, whose disciple he became. After his admission into holy orders, he was told to travel about, and plant his miswāk wherever he halted, and regard the place where it sprouted as his permanent residence. The miswāk, or tooth-brush, is a piece of the root of the pīlū tree (Salvadora persica), which is used by Muhammadans, and especially Fakirs, for cleaning the teeth. When Bava Faqrud-dīn arrived at Penukonda hill, he, as usual, planted the miswāk, which sprouted. He accordingly decided to make this spot his permanent abode. But there was close by an important Hindu temple, and the idea of a Muhammadan settling close to it enraged the Hindus, who asked him to leave. He not only refused to do so, but allowed his disciples, of whom a number had collected, to slaughter a sacred bull belonging to the temple. The Hindus accordingly decided to kill Faqrud-dīn and his disciples. The Rāja collected an armed force, and demanded the restoration of the bull. Faqrud-dīn ordered one of his disciples to bring before him the skin, head, feet and tail of the animal, which had been preserved. Striking the skin with his staff, he exclaimed “Rise, Oh! bull, at the command of God.” The animal immediately rose in a complete state of restoration, and would not leave the presence of his preserver. Alarmed at this miracle, the Hindus brandished their swords and spears, and were about to fall on the Muhammadans, when a dust-storm arose and blinded them. In their confusion, they began to slay each other, and left the spot in dismay. TheRāja then resolved to kill the Muhammadans by poisoning them. He prepared some cakes mixed with poison, and sent them to Faqrud-dīn for distribution among his disciples. The saint, though he knew that the cakes were poisoned, partook thereof of himself, as also did his disciples, without any evil effect. A few days afterwards, the Rāja was attacked with colic, and his case was given up by the court physicians as hopeless. As a last resort, he was taken before Faqrud-dīn, who offered him one of the poisoned cakes, which cured him. Falling at his feet, the Rāja begged for pardon, and offered the village of Penukonda to Faqrud-dīn as a jaghīr (annuity). This offer was declined, and the saint asked that the temple should be converted into a mosque. The Rāja granted this request, and it is said that large numbers of Hindus embraced the Muhammadan religion, and were the ancestors of the Dūdēkulas.The Dūdēkulas, like the Hindus, like to possess some visible symbol for worship, and they enrol great personages who have died among the number of those at whose graves they worship. So essential is this grave worship that, if a place is without one, a grave is erected in the name of some saint. Such a thing has happened in recent times in Banganapalle. A Fakir, named Allā Bakhsh, died at Kurnool. A Dūdēkula of the Banganapalle State visited his grave, took away a lump of earth from the ground near it, and buried it in a village ten miles from Banganapalle. A shrine was erected over it in the name of the saint, and has become very famous for the miracles which are performed at it. An annual festival is held, which is attended by large numbers of Muhammadans and Dūdēkulas.Some Dūdēkulas have names which, though at first sight they seem to be Hindu, are really Muhammadan.For example, Kambannah is a corruption of Kamal Sahib, and Sakali, which in Telugu means a washerman, seems to be an altered form of Sheik Āli. Though Dūdēkulas say that they are Muhammadans of the Sheik sect, the name Sheik is only occasionally used as a prefix,e.g., Sheik Hussain or Sheik Āli. Names of males are Hussain Sa, Fakir Sa, and Khāsim Sa. Sa is an abbreviated form of Sahib. One old Dūdēkula stated that the title Sahib was intended for pucka (genuine) Muhammadans, and that the Dūdēkulas could not lay claim to the title in its entirety. Instead of Sa, Bhai, meaning brother, is sometimes used as a suffix to the name,e.g., Ghudu Bhai. Ghudu, meaning ash-heap, is an opprobrious name given to children of those whose offspring have died young, in the hope of securing long life to them. The child is taken, immediately after birth, to an ash-heap, where some of the ashes are sprinkled over it. Some Dūdēkulas adopt the Hindu termination appa (father), anna (brother), or gadu,e.g., Pullanna, Nāganna, Yerkalappa, Hussaingadu, Hussainappa. Typical names of females are Roshammā, Jamalammā, and Madarammā. They have dropped the title Bibi or Bi, and adopted the Hindu title ammā (mother).The ceremony of naming a child is generally performed on the sixth day after its birth. The choice of a name is entrusted to an elderly female member of the family. In some cases, the name of a deceased ancestor who lived to an advanced age is taken. If a child dies prematurely, there is a superstitious prejudice against its name, which is avoided by the family. Very frequently a father and son, and sometimes two or three brothers, have the same name. In such a case prefixes are added to their names as a means of distinguishing them,e.g., Pedda (big), Nadpi (middle), Chinna (little). Sometimestwo names are assumed by an individual, one a Hindu name for every day use, the other Muhammadan for ceremonial occasions.The Dūdēkulas depend for the performance of their ceremonies largely on the Khāzi, by whom even the killing of a fowl for domestic purposes has to be carried out. The Dūdēkula, like other Muhammadans, is averse to taking animal life without due religious rites, and the zabh, or killing of an animal for food, is an important matter. One who is about to do so should first make vazu (ablution), by cleaning his teeth and washing his mouth, hands, face, forearms, head and feet. He should then face the west, and an assistant holds the animal to be slaughtered upside down, and facing west. Water is poured into its mouth, and the words Bismillā hi Allā hu Akbar uttered. The operator then cuts the throat, taking care that the jugular veins are divided. In remote villages, where a Khāzi is not available, the Dūdēkulas keep a sacrificial knife, which has been sanctified by the Khāzi repeating over it the same words from the Korān as are used when an animal is slaughtered.The first words which a Muhammadan child should hear are those of the azān, or call to prayer, which are uttered in its ear immediately after birth. This ceremony is observed by those Dūdēkulas who live in towns or big villages, or can afford the services of a Khāzi. It is noted by Mr. Francis that the Dūdēkulas raise the azān at sunset. A few, who have been through a course of religious instruction at a Madrasa (school), may be able to do this. A Muhammadan is supposed to raise the azān five times daily, viz., before sunrise, between noon and 3P.M., between 4 and 6P.M., at sunset, and between 8P.M.and midnight.At the naming of an infant on the sixth day, the Dūdēkulas do not, like other Muhammadans, perform the aguigā ceremony, which consists of shaving the child’s head, and sacrificing a he-goat. Children are circumcised before the tenth year. On such occasions the Muhammadans generally invite their friends, and distribute sweets and pān-supāri (betel leaf and areca nuts). The Dūdēkulas simply send for a barber, Hindu or Muhammadan, who performs the operation in the presence of a Khāzi, if one happens to be available. When a girl reaches puberty, the Dūdēkulas invite their friends to a feast. Other Muhammadans, on the contrary, keep the fact a secret.At the betrothal ceremony, when sweets and pān-supāri are taken by the future bridegroom and his party to the house of the girl whom he seeks in marriage, the female members of both families, and the girl herself, are present. This fact shows the absence of the Muhammadan gōsha system among Dūdēkulas. A Muhammadan wedding lasts over five or six days, whereas the ceremonies are, among the Dūdēkulas, completed within twenty-four hours. On the night preceding the nikka day, a pilau is prepared, and a feast is held at the bridegroom’s house. On the following morning, when it is still dark, the bridegroom, accompanied by his relations, starts on horseback in procession, with beating of drums and letting off of fireworks. The procession arrives at the bride’s house before sunrise. The Khāzi is sent for, and the mahr is settled. This is a nominal gift settled on the wife before marriage by the bridegroom. On the death of a husband, a widow has priority of claim on his property to the promised amount of the mahr. Two male witnesses are sent to the bride, to obtain her assent to the union, and to the amount ofthe mahr. The Khāzi, being an orthodox Muhammadan, treats the Dūdēkula bride as strictly gōsha for the time being, and, therefore, selects two of her near relatives as witnesses. The lutcha (marriage badge), consisting of a single or double string of beads, is brought in a cup filled with sandal paste.The Khāzi chants the marriage service, and sends the lutcha in to the bride with his blessing. It is tied round her neck by the female relations of the bridegroom, and the marriage rites are over.The usual Muhammadan form of greeting among Muhammadans is the familiar “Peace be with you.” “And with you be peace.” When a Dūdēkula greets a Muhammadan, he simply bows, and, with members of his own community, uses a Telugu form of salutation,e.g., nīku mokkutāmu.The Dūdēkulas, male and female, dress exactly like Hindus, but, as a rule, the men do not shave their beard.Disputes, and social questions affecting the community, are settled by a Khāzi.With the increase in cotton mills, and the decline of the indigenous hand-weaving industry, the demand for cotton-cleaning labour has diminished, and some Dūdēkulas have, of necessity, taken to agriculture. Land-owners are very scarce among them, but some are abkāri (liquor) contractors, village schoolmasters, and quack doctors. In the Ceded Districts, the cotton-cleaning industry is solely confined to the Dūdēkulas.The synonyms of Dūdēkula, Ladaf and Nūrbāsh, recorded at times of census, are corruptions of Nad-dāf (a cotton dresser) and Nūrbāf (weaving).Dūdi.—A title of Kurumos, who officiate as priests at the temples of village deities.Dūdi(cotton)Balija.—A name for traders in cotton in the Telugu country, and an occupational sub-division of Kōmati.Durga(fort).—A gōtra of Kurni.Dūtan.—Recorded, in the Travancore Census Report, as a synonym of Āri.Dyavana(tortoise).—An exogamous sept of Mogēr.
cm.Padma Sālē159.9Sūkūn Sālē160.3Togata160.5Suka Sālē161.1Dēvēndra.—A name assumed by some Pallans, who claim to be descended from the king of the gods (dēvas).Dhabba(split bamboo).—Dhabba or Dhabbai is the name of a sub-division of Koravas, who split bamboos, and make various articles therefrom.Dhakkado.—A small mixed class of Oriya cultivators, concerning whom there is a proverb that a Dhakkado does not know his father. They are described, in the Census Report, 1891, as “a caste of cultivators found in the Jeypore agency tracts. They are said to be the offspring of a Brāhman and a Sūdra girl, and, though living on the hills, they are not an uncivilised hill tribe. Some prepare and sell the sacred thread, others are confectioners. They wear the sacred thread, and do not drink water from the hands of any except Brāhmans. Girls are married before puberty, and widow marriage is practiced. They are flesh-eaters, and their dead are usually buried.”In a note on the Dhakkados, Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao writes that “the illegitimate descendant of a Brāhman and a hill woman of the non-polluting castes is said to be known as a Dhakkado. The Dhakkados assume Brāhmanical names, but, as regards marriages, funerals, etc., follow the customs of their mother’s caste. Her caste people intermarry with her children. ADhakkado usually follows the occupation of his mother’s caste. Thus one whose mother is a Kevuto follows the calling of fishing or plying boats on rivers, one whose mother is a Bhumia is an agriculturist, and so on.”Dhakūr.—Stated, in the Manual of the Vizagapatam district, to be illegitimate children of Brāhmans, who wear the paieta (sacred thread).Dhanapāla.—A sub-division of Gollas, who guard treasure while it is in transit.Dhangar.—Dhangar, or Donigar, is recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as a Marāthi caste of shepherds and cattle-breeders. I gather, from a note45on the Dhangars of the Kanara district in the Bombay Presidency, that “the word Dhangar is generally derived from the Sanskrit dhenu, a cow. Their home speech is Marāthi, but they can speak Kanarese. They keep a special breed of cows and buffaloes, known as Dhangar mhasis and Dhangar gāis which are the largest cattle in Kanara. Many of Shivāji’s infantry were Sātāra Dhangars.”Dhaniāla(coriander).—An exogamous sept of Kamma. Dhaniāla Jāti, or coriander caste, is an opprobrious name applied to Kōmatis, indicating that, in business transactions, they must be crushed as coriander fruits are crushed before the seed is sown.Dhāre.—An exogamous sept of Kuruba. In the Canara country, the essential and binding part of the marriage ceremony is called dhāre (seeBant).Dharmarāja.—An exogamous sept of the Irulas of North Arcot. Dharmarāja was the eldest of the five Pāndavas, the heroes of the Mahābhāratha.Dhippo(light).—An exogamous sept of Bhondāri. The members thereof may not blow out lights, or extinguish them in any other way. They will not light lamps without being madi,i.e., wearing silk cloths, or cloths washed and dried after bathing.Dhōbi.—A name used for washerman by Anglo-Indians all over India. The word is said to be derived from dhōha, Sanskrit, dhāv, to wash. A whitish grey sandy efflorescence, found in many places, from which, by boiling and the addition of quicklime, an alkali of considerable strength is obtained, is called Dhōbi’s earth.46“The expression dhobie itch,” Manson writes,47“although applied to any itching ringworm-like affection of any part of the skin, most commonly refers to some form of epiphytic disease of the crutch or axilla (armpit).” The disease is very generally supposed to be communicated by clothes from the wash, but Manson is of opinion that the belief that it is contracted from clothes which have been contaminated by the washerman is probably not very well founded.Dhōbi is the name, by which the washerman caste of the Oriyas is known. “They are said,” Mr. Francis writes,48“to have come originally from Orissa. Girls are generally married before maturity, and, if this is not possible, they have to be married to a sword or a tree, before they can be wedded to a man. Their ordinary marriage ceremonies are as follows. The bridal pair bathe in water brought from seven different houses. The bridegroom puts a bangle on the bride’s arm (this is the binding part of the ceremony); the left and right wrists of the bride and bridegroom are tied together; betel leaf and nut are tied in a corner of the bride’s cloth, and amyrabolam (Terminaliafruit) in that of the bridegroom; and finally the people present in the pandal (booth) throw rice and saffron (turmeric) over them. Widows and divorced women may marry again. They are Vaishnavites, but some of them also worship Kāli or Durga. They employ Bairāgis, and occasionally Brāhmans, as their priests. They burn their dead, and perform srāddha (annual memorial ceremony). Their titles are Chetti (or Mahā Chetti) and Bēhara.” The custom of the bridal pair bathing in water from seven different houses obtains among many Oriya castes, including Brāhmans. It is known by the name of pāni-tula. The water is brought by married girls, who have not reached puberty, on the night preceding the wedding day, and the bride and bridegroom wash in it before dawn. This bath is called koili pāni snāno, or cuckoo water-bath. The koil is the Indian koel or cuckoo (Eudynamis honorata), whose crescendo cry ku-il, ku-il, is trying to the nerves during the hot season.The following proverbs49relating to washermen may be quoted:—Get a new washerman, and an old barber.The washerman knows the defects of the village (i.e., he learns a good deal about the private affairs of the various families, when receiving and delivering the clothes).When a washerman gets sick, his sickness must leave him at the stone. The stone referred to is the large stone, on which the washerman cleans cloths, and the proverb denotes that, however sick a washerman may be, his work must be done.Dhoddi.—Dhoddi, meaning a court or back-yard, cattle-pen, or sheep-fold, has been recorded as an exogamous sept of Dēvānga, Koppala Velama, Kama Sālē, Māla, and Yānādi.Dhoddiyan.—A name given by Tamilians to Jōgis.Dhollo.—Dhollo is recorded in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as the same as Doluva. A correspondent informs me that Dhollo is said to be different from Doluva.Dhōma(gnat or mosquito).—An exogamous sept of Māla.Dhondapu(Cephalandra indica).—An exogamous sept of Dēvānga. The fruit is one of the commonest of native vegetables, and cooked in curries.Dhōni(boat).—An exogamous sept of Mīla and Oruganti Kāpu. In a paper on the native vessels of South India by Mr. Edge, published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, the dhōni is described as “a vessel of ark-like form, about 70 feet long, 20 feet broad, and 11 feet deep, with a flat bottom or keel part, which at the broadest place is 7 feet.“The whole equipment of these rude vessels, as well as their construction, is the most coarse and unseaworthy that I have ever seen.” The dhōni, with masts, is represented in the ancient lead and copper coinage of Southern India.Dhor.—In the Madras Census Report, 1901, a few (164) individuals were returned as “Dhēr, a low caste of Marāthi leather workers.” They were, I gather from the Bombay Gazetteer, Dhors or tanners who dwell in various parts of the Bombay Presidency, and whose home speech, names and surnames seem to show that they have come from the Marātha country.Dhūdala(calves).—An exogamous sept of Thūmati Golla.Dhudho(milk).—A sept of Omanaito.Dhuggāni(money).—An exogamous sept of Dēvānga.Dhūliya.—Dhūliya or Dūlia is a small class of Oriya cultivators, some of whom wear the sacred thread, and employ Boishnobs as their priests. Marriage before puberty is not compulsory, and widows can remarry. They eat flesh. The dead are cremated.50The name is said to be derived from dhuli, dust, with which those who work in the fields are covered. Dhūliya also means carriers of dhulis (dhoolies), which are a form of palanquin.Didāvi.—A sub-division of Poroja.Digambara(space-clad or sky-clad,i.e., nude).—One of the two main divisions of the Jains. The Digambaras are said51to “regard absolute nudity as the indispensable sign of holiness, though the advance of civilisation has compelled them to depart from the practice of their theory.”Dīvar.—SeeDēva.Diyāsi.—An exogamous sept of Dandāsi. The members thereof show special reverence for the sun, and cloths, mokkutos (forehead chaplets), garlands, and other articles to be used by the bride and bridegroom at a wedding are placed outside the house, so that they may be exposed to it.Dolaiya.—A title of Doluva and Odia.Dolobēhara.—The name of headmen or their assistants among many Oriya castes. In some cases,e.g., among the Haddis, the name is used as a title by families, members of which are headmen.Doluva.—The Doluvas of Ganjam are, according to the Madras Census Report, 1891, “supposed to be the descendants of the old Rājahs by their concubines, and were employed as soldiers and attendants. The name issaid to be derived from the Sanskrit dola, meaning army.” The Doluvas claim to be descended from the Puri Rājahs by their concubines, and say that some of them were employed as sirdars and paiks under these Rājahs. They are said to have accompanied a certain Puri Rājah who came south to wage war, and to have settled in Ganjam. They are at the present day mainly engaged in agriculture, though some are traders, bricklayers, cart-drivers, etc. The caste seems to be divided into five sections, named Kondaiyito, Lenka, Rabba, Pottia, and Beharania, of which the first two are numerically the strongest and most widely distributed. Kondaiyito is said to be derived from kondo, an arrow, and to indicate warrior. The Kondaiyitos sometimes style themselves Rājah Doluvas, and claim superiority over the other sections. It is noted, in the Madras Census Report, 1891, that “Oriya Zamindars get wives from this sub-division, but the men of it cannot marry into the Zamindar’s families. They wear the sacred thread, and are writers.” In former days, the title writer was applied to the junior grade of Civil Servants of the East India Company. It is now used to denote a copying clerk in an office.Various titles occur among members of the caste,e.g., Bissoyi, Biswālo, Dolei, Jenna, Kottiya, Mahanti, Majhi, Nāhako, Porida, Rāvuto, Sāmulo, and Sāni.The ordinary caste council system, with a hereditary headman, seems to be absent among the Doluvas, and the affairs of the caste are settled by leading members thereof.The Doluvas are Paramarthos, following the Chaitanya form of Vaishnavism, and wearing a rosary of tulsi (Ocimum sanctum) beads. They further worship various Tākurānis (village deities), among which are Kālva, Bāgadēvi, Kotari, Mahēswari, and Manickēswari. Theyare in some places very particular regarding the performance of srādh (memorial ceremony), which is carried out annually in the following manner. On the night before the srādh day, a room is prepared for the reception of the soul of the deceased. This room is called pitru bharano (reception of the ancestor). The floor thereof is cleansed with cow-dung water, and a lamp fed with ghī (clarified butter) is placed on it by the side of a plank. On this plank a new cloth is laid for the reception of various articles for worship,e.g., sacred grass,Zizyphus jujubaleaves, flowers, etc. In front of the plank a brass vessel, containing water and a tooth brush ofAchyranthes asperaroot, is placed. The dead person’s son throws rice andZizyphusleaves into the air, and calls on the deceased to come and give a blessing on the following day. The room is then locked, and the lamp kept burning in it throughout the night. On the following day, all old pots are thrown away and, after a small space has been cleaned on the floor of the house, a pattern is drawn thereon with flour in the form of a square or oblong with twelve divisions. On each division a jak (Artocarpus integrifolia) leaf is placed, and on each leaf the son puts cooked rice and vegetables. A vessel containingAchyranthesroot, and a plank with a new cloth on it, are set by the side of the pattern. After worship has been performed and food offered, the cloth is presented to a Brāhman, and the various articles used in the ceremonial are thrown into water.Dōmb.—The name Dōmb or Dōmbo is said to be derived from the word dumba, meaning devil, in reference to the thieving propensities of the tribe. The Dōmbas, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,52“are a Dravidiancaste of weavers and menials, found in the hill tracts of Vizagapatam. This caste appears to be an offshoot of the Dōm caste of Bengal, Behār, and the North-Western Provinces. Like the Dōms, the Dōmbas are regarded with disgust, because they eat beef, pork, horse-flesh, rats, and the flesh of animals which have died a natural death, and both are considered to be Chandālas or Pariahs by the Bengālis and the Uriyas. The Dōmbs weave the cloths and blankets worn by the hill people, but, like the Pariahs of the plains, they are also labourers, scavengers, etc. Some of them are extensively engaged in trade, and they have, as a rule, more knowledge of the world than the ryots who despise them. They are great drunkards.” In the Census Report, 1871, it was noted that “in many villages, the Dōms carry on the occupation of weaving, but, in and around Jaipur, they are employed as horse-keepers, tom-tom beaters, scavengers, and in other menial duties. Notwithstanding their abject position in the social scale, some signs of progress may be detected amongst them. They are assuming the occupation, in many instances, of petty hucksters, eking out a livelihood by taking advantage of the small difference in rates between market and market.”“The Dōmbs,” Mr. F. Fawcett writes,53“are an outcast jungle people, who inhabit the forests on the high lands fifty to eighty or a hundred miles from the east coast, about Vizagapatam. Being outcast, they are never allowed to live within a village, but have their own little hamlet adjoining a village proper, inhabited by people of various superior castes. It is fair to say that the Dōmbs are akin to the Pānos of the adjoiningKhond country, a Pariah folk who live amongst the Khonds, and used to supply the human victims for the Meriah sacrifices. Indeed, the Khonds, who hold them in contemptuous inferiority, call them Dōmbas as a sort of alternative title to Pānos. The Paidis of the adjoining Savara or Saora country are also, doubtless, kinsmen of the Dōmbs. [The same man is said to be called Paidi by Telugus, Dōmbo by the Savaras, and Pāno by the Khonds. It is noted in the Census Report, 1881, that the Pāno quarters in Khond villages are called Dōmbo Sai.] In most respects their condition is a very poor one. Though they live in the best part of the Presidency for game, they know absolutely nothing of hunting, and cannot even handle a bow and arrow. They have, however, one respectable quality, industry, and are the weavers, traders, and money-lenders of the hills, being very useful as middlemen between the Khonds, Sauras, Gadabas, and other hill people on the one hand, and the traders of the plains on the other. I am informed, on good authority, that there are some Dōmbs who rise higher than this, but cannot say whether these are, or are not crosses with superior races. Most likely they are, for most of the Dōmbs are arrant thieves. It was this propensity for thieving, in fact, which had landed some hundreds of them in the jail at Vizagapatam when I visited that place, and gave me an opportunity of recording their measurements.” The averages of the more important of these measurements are as follows:—cm.Stature161.9Cephalic length18.8Cephalic breadth14.3Cephalic index75.6Nasal index86.5It is noted by the Missionary Gloyer54that the colour of the skin of the Dōmbs varies from very dark to yellow, and their height from that of an Aryan to the short stature of an aboriginal, and that there is a corresponding variation in facial type.For the following note on the Dōmbs, I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. They are the weavers, traders, musicians, beggars, and money-lenders of the hills. Some own cattle, and cultivate. The hill people in the interior are entirely dependent on them for their clothing. A few Dōmb families are generally found to each village. They act as middlemen between the hill people and the Kōmati traders. Their profits are said to be large, and their children are, in some places, found attending hill schools. As musicians, they play on the drum and pipe. They are the hereditary musicians of the Mahārāja of Jeypore. A Dōmb beggar, when engaged in his professional calling, goes about from door to door, playing on a little pipe. Their supposed powers over devils and witches result in their being consulted when troubles appear. Though the Dōmbs are regarded as a low and polluting class, they will not eat at the hands of Kōmatis, Bhondāris, or Ghāsis. Some Dōmbas have become converts to Christianity through missionary influence.In the Madras Census Report, 1891, the following sections of the Dōmbs are recorded:—Onomia, Odia, Māndiri, Mirgām, and Kohara. The sub-divisions, however, seem to be as follows:—Mirigāni, Kobbiriya, Odiya, Sōdabisiya, Māndiri, and Andiniya. There are also various septs, of which the following have been recorded among the Odiyas:—Bhāg (tiger), Bālu (bear),Nāg (cobra), Hanumān (the monkey god), Kochchipo (tortoise), Bengri (frog), Kukra (dog), Surya (sun), Matsya (fish), and Jaikonda (lizard). It is noted by Mr. Fawcett that “monkeys, frogs, and cobras are taboo, and also the sunāri tree (Ochna squarrosa). The big lizard, cobras, frogs, and the crabs which are found in the paddy fields, and are usually eaten by jungle people, may not be eaten.”When a girl reaches puberty, she remains outside the hut for five days, and then bathes at the nearest stream, and is presented with a new cloth. In honour of the event, drink is distributed among her relatives. Girls are usually married after puberty. A man can claim his paternal aunt’s daughter in marriage. When a proposal of marriage is to be made, the suitor carries some pots of liquor, usually worth two rupees, to the girl’s house, and deposits them in front of it. If her parents consent to the match, they take the pots inside, and drink some of the liquor. After some time has elapsed, more liquor, worth five rupees, is taken to the girl’s house. A reduction in the quantity of liquor is made when a man is proposing for the hand of his paternal aunt’s daughter, and, on the second occasion, the liquor will only be worth three rupees. A similar reduction is made in the jholla tonka, or bride price. On the wedding day, the bridegroom goes, accompanied by his relations, to the bride’s home, where, at the auspicious moment fixed by the Desāri, his father presents new cloths to himself and the bride, which they put on. They stand before the hut, and on each is placed a cloth with a myrabolam (Terminalia) seed, rice, and a few copper coins tied up in it. The bridegroom’s right little finger is linked with the left little finger of the bride, and they enter the hut. On the following day, the newlymarried couple repair to the home of the bridegroom. On the third day, they are bathed in turmeric water, a pig is killed, and a feast is held. On the ninth day, the knots in the cloths, containing the myrabolams, rice, and coins, are untied, and the marriage ceremonies are at an end. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and a younger brother usually marries the widow of his elder brother.It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “some of the Dōmbus of the Parvatipur Agency follow many of the customs of the low-country castes, including mēnarikam (marriage with the maternal uncle’s daughter), and say they are the same as the Paidis (or Paidi Mālas) of the plains adjoining, with whom they intermarry.”The corpses of the more prosperous Dōmbs are usually cremated. The wood of the sunāri tree and relli (Cassia fistula) may not be used for the pyre. The son or husband of a deceased person has his head, moustache, and armpits shaved on the tenth day.Dōmb women, and women of other tribes in the Jeypore Agency tracts, wear silver ear ornaments called nāgul, representing a cobra just about to strike with tongue protruded. Similar ornaments of gold, called nāga pōgulu (cobra-shaped earrings), are worn by women of some Telugu castes in the plains of Vizagapatam.The personal names of the Dōmbs are, as among other Oriya castes, often those of the day of the week on which the individual was born.Concerning the religion of the Dōmbs, Mr. Fawcett notes that “their chief god—probably an ancestral spirit—is called Kaluga. There is one in each village, in the headman’s house. The deity is represented by a pie piece (copper coin), placed in or over a new earthenpot smeared with rice and turmeric powder. During worship, a silk cloth, a new cloth, or a wet cloth may be worn, but one must not dress in leaves. Before the mangoes are eaten, the first-fruits are offered to the moon, at the full moon of the month Chitra.”“When,” Gloyer writes, “a house has to be built, the first thing is to select a favourable spot, to which few evil spirits (dūmas) resort. At this spot they put, in several places, three grains of rice arranged in such a way that the two lower grains support the upper one. To protect the grains, they pile up stones round them, and the whole is lightly covered with earth. When, after some time, they find on inspection that the upper grain has fallen off, the spot is regarded as unlucky, and must not be used. If the position of the grains remains unchanged, the omen is regarded as auspicious. They drive in the first post, which must have a certain length, say of five, seven, or nine ells, the ell being measured from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow. The post is covered on the top with rice straw, leaves, and shrubs, so that birds may not foul it, which would be regarded as an evil omen. [In Madras, a story is current, with reference to the statue of Sir Thomas Munro, that he seized upon all the rice depôts, and starved the people to death by selling rice in egg-shells at one shell for a rupee, and, to punish him, the Government erected the statue in an open place, so that the birds of the air might insult him by polluting his face.] In measuring the house, odd numbers play an important part. The number four (pura, or full number), however, forms the proper measurement, whereby they measure the size of the house, according to the pleasure of the builder. But now the Dissary (Dēsāri) decides whether the house shall be built on the nandi, dua, or tia system, nandisignifying one, dua two, and tia three. This number of ells must be added to the measurement of the house. Supposing that the length of the house is twelve ells, then it will be necessary to add one ell according to the nandi system, so that the length amounts to thirteen ells. The number four can only be used for stables.”“The Dūmas,” Gloyer continues, “are represented as souls of the deceased, which roam about without a home, so as to cause to mankind all possible harm. At the birth of a child, the Dūma must be invited in a friendly manner to provide the child with a soul, and protect it against evil. For this purpose, a fowl is killed on the ninth day, a bone (beinknochen) detached, and pressed in to the hand of the infant. The relations are seated in solemn silence, and utter the formula:—When grandfather, grandmother, father, or brother comes, throw away the bone, and we will truly believe it. No sooner does the sprawling and excited infant drop the bone, than the Dūmas are come, and boisterous glee prevails. The Dūmas occasionally give vent to their ghostly sounds, and cause no little consternation among the inmates of a house, who hide from fear. Cunning thieves know how to rob the superstitious by employing instruments with a subdued tone (dumpftönende), or by emitting deep sounds from the chest. The yearly sacrifice to a Dūma consists of a black fowl and strong brandy. If a member of a family falls ill, an extraordinary sacrifice has to be offered up. The Dūma is not regarded only as an evil spirit, but also as a tutelary deity. He protects one against the treacherous attacks of witches. A place is prepared for him in the door-hinge, or a fishing-net, wherein he lives, is placed over the door. The witches must count all the knots of the net, before they can enter. Devil worship is closely connected with that of theDūma. The devil’s priests, and in rare cases priestesses, effect communion between the people and the Dūmas by a sort of possession, which the spirit, entering into them, is said to give rise to. This condition, which is produced by intoxicating drink and the fumes of burning incense, gives rise to revolting cramp-like contortions, and muscular quiverings. In this state, they are wont to communicate what sacrifices the spirits require. On special occasions, they fall into a frenzied state, in which they cut their flesh with sharp instruments, or pass long, thin iron bars through the tongue and cheeks, during which operation no blood must flow. For this purpose, the instruments are rubbed all over with some blood-congealing material or sap. They also affect sitting on a sacred swing, armed with long iron nails. [Mr. G. F. Paddison informs me that he once saw a villager in the Vizagapatam district, sitting outside the house, while groans proceeded from within. He explained that he was ill, and his wife was swinging on nails with their points upwards, to cure him.] The devil called Jom Duto, or messenger of the going, is believed to be a one-eyed, limping, black individual, whose hair is twisted into a frightfully long horn, while one foot is very long, and the other resembles the hoof of a buffalo. He makes his appearance at the death-bed, in order to drag his victim to the realm of torture.”Children are supposed to be born without souls, and to be afterwards chosen as an abode by the soul of an ancestor. The coming of the ancestor is signalised by the child dropping a chicken bone which has been thrust into its hand, and much rejoicing follows among the assembled relations.55Mr. Paddison tells me that some Dōmbs are reputed to be able to pour blazing oil over their bodies, without suffering any hurt; and one man is said to have had a miraculous power of hardening his skin, so that any one could have a free shot at him, without hurting him. He further narrates that, at Sujanakōta in the Vizagapatam district, the Dōmbs, notwithstanding frequent warnings, put devils into two successive schoolmasters.Various tattoo devices, borne by the Dōmbs examined by Mr. Fawcett, are figured and described by him. “These patterns,” he writes, “were said to be, one and all, purely ornamental, and not in any way connected with totems, or tribal emblems.” Risley, however,56regards “four out of the twelve designs as pretty closely related to the religion and mythology of the tribe; two are totems and two have reference to the traditional avocations. Nos. 11 and 12 represent a classical scene in Dōm folk-lore, the story of King Haris-Chandra, who was so generous that he gave all he had to the poor and sold himself to a Dōm at Benares, who employed him to watch his cremation ground at night. While he was thus engaged, his wife, who had also been sold for charitable purposes, came to burn the body of her son. She had no money to pay her fees, and Haris-Chandra, not knowing her in the darkness, turned her away. Fortunately the sun rose; mutual recognition followed; the victims of promiscuous largesse were at once remarried, and Vishnu intervened to restore the son to life. Tatu No. 11 shows Haris-Chandra watching the burning-ground by moonlight; the wavy line is the Ganges; the dots are the trees on the other side; the strokes on either side of the king are the logs of wood,which he is guarding. In No. 12 we see the sun rising, its first ray marked with a sort of fork, and the meeting of the king and queen.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “throughout the Jeypore country proper, the Dombus (and some Ghāsis) are by far the most troublesome class. Their favourite crime is cattle-theft for the sake of the skins, but, in 1902, a Dombu gang in Naurangpūr went so far as to levy blackmail over a large extent of country, and defy for some months all attempts at capture. The loss of their cattle exasperates the other hill folk to the last degree, and, in 1899, the Naiks (headmen) of sixteen villages in the north of Jeypore tāluk headed an organized attack on the houses of the Dombus, which, in the most deliberate manner, they razed to the ground in some fifteen villages. The Dombus had fortunately got scent of what was coming, and made themselves scarce, and no bloodshed occurred. In the next year, some of the Naiks of the Rāmagiri side of Jeypore tāluk sent round a jack branch, a well-recognised form of the fiery cross, summoning villagers other than Dombus to assemble at a fixed time and place, but this was luckily intercepted by the police. The Agent afterwards discussed the whole question with the chief Naiks of Jeypore and South Naurangpūr. Theyhad no opinion of the deterrent effects of mere imprisonment on the Dombus. ‘You fatten them, and send them back,’ they said, and suggested that a far better plan would be to cut off their right hands. [It is noted, in the Vizagapatam Manual, 1869, that in cases of murder, the Rājah of Jeypore generally had the man’s hands, nose, and ears cut off, but, after all that, he seldom escaped the deceased’s relatives.] They eventually proposed a plan of checking the cattle-thefts, which is now being followed in much of that country. The Bāranaiks, or heads of groups of villages, were each given brands with distinctive letters and numbers, and required to brand the skins of all animals which had died a natural death or been honestly killed; and the possession by Dombus, skin merchants, or others, of unbranded skins is now considered a suspicious circumstance, the burden of explaining which lies upon the possessor. Unless this, or some other way of checking the Dombus’ depredations proves successful, serious danger exists that the rest of the people will take the matter into their own hands and, as the Dombus in the Agency number over 50,000, this would mean real trouble.” It is further recorded57that the Paidis (Paidi Mālas), who often commit dacoities on the roads, “are connected with the Dombus of the Rāyagada and Gunupur tāluks, who are even worse. These people dacoit houses at night in armed gangs of fifty or more, with their faces blacked to prevent recognition. Terrifying the villagers into staying quiet in their huts, they force their way into the house of some wealthy person (for choice the local Sondi, liquor-seller and sowcar,58usually the only man worth looting in an agency village, and a shark who gets little pity from hisneighbours when forced to disgorge), tie up the men, rape the women, and go off with everything of value. Their favourite method of extracting information regarding concealed property is to sprinkle the houseowner with boiling oil.”Dommara.—The Dommaras are a tribe of tumblers, athletes, and mountebanks, some of whom wander about the country, while others have settled down as agricultural labourers, or make combs out of the wood ofElæodendron glaucum,Ixora parviflora,Pavetta indica,Ficus bengalensis, etc., which they sell to wholesale merchants. They are, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,59“a nomad class of acrobats, who, in many respects, recall the gipsies to mind, and raise the suggestion that their name may possibly be connected with the Dōms of Northern India. They speak Telugu, Marāthi, and Hindustani, but not generally Tamil. They are skilful jugglers, and both men and women are very clever tumblers and tight-rope dancers, exhibiting their feats as they travel about the country. Some of them sell date mats and baskets, some trade in pigs, while others, settled in villages, cultivate lands. In social position they rank just above the Pariahs and Mādigas. They profess to be Vaishnavites [and Saivites]. Infant marriage is not practiced. Widow remarriage is freely allowed, and polygamy is common. Their marriage tie is very loose, and their women often practice prostitution. They are a predatory class, great drunkards, and of most dissolute habits. The dead are generally buried, and [on the day of the final death ceremonies] cooked rice is thrown out to be eaten by crows. In the matter of food, they eat all sorts of animals, including pigs, cats, andcrows.” When a friend was engaged in making experiments in connection with snake venom, some Dommaras asked for permission to unbury the corpses of snakes and mungooses for the purpose of food.Ārē Dommara acrobat.Ārē Dommara acrobat.The Dommaras are, in the Mysore Census Report, 1901, summed up as being buffoons, tumblers, acrobats, and snakecharmers, who travel from place to place, and earn a precarious living by their exhibitions. In the Madras Census Report, 1901, Domban, Kalaikūttādi (pole-dancer), and Ārya Kūttādi, are given as synonyms of Dommara. The Kūttādi are summed up, in the Tanjore Manual, as vagabond dancers, actors, pantomimists, and marionette exhibitors, who hold a very low position in the social scale, and always perform in public streets and bazaars.By Mr. F. S. Mullaly60the Dommaras are divided into Reddi or Kāpu (i.e., cultivators) and Āray (Marātha). “The women,” he writes, “are proficient in making combs of horn and wood, and implements used by weavers. These they hawk about from place to place, to supplement the profits they derive from their exhibitions of gymnastic feats. In addition to performing conjuring tricks, rope-dancing and the like, the Dommaras hunt, fish, make mats, and rear donkeys and pigs. The head of the tribe is called the Mutli Guru. He is their high priest, and exercises supreme jurisdiction over them both in spiritual and temporal matters. His head-quarters is Chitvēl in the Cuddapah district. The legend regarding the office of the Mutli Guru is as follows. At Chitvēl, or as it was then known Mutli, there once lived a king, who called together a gathering of all the gymnasts among his subjects. Several classes were represented.Pōlērigādu, a Reddi Dommara, so pleased the king that he was presented with a ring, and a royal edict was passed that the wearer of the ring and his descendants should be the head of the Dommara class. The ring then given is said to be the same that is now worn by the head of the tribe at Chitvēl, which bears an inscription in Telugu declaring that the wearer is the high-priest or guru of all the Dommaras. The office is hereditary. The dwellings of the Dommaras are somewhat similar to those of the Koravars and Joghis, made of palmyra leaves plaited into mats with seven strands. These huts, or gudisays, are located on the outskirts of villages, and carried on the backs of donkeys when on the march. Stolen cloths, unless of value, are not as a rule sold, but concealed in the packs of their donkeys, and after a time worn. The Dommaras are addicted to dacoity, robbery, burglary, and thefts. The instrument used by them is unlike those used by other criminal classes: it is of iron, about a foot long, and with a chisel-shaped point. As cattle and sheep lifters they are expert, and they have their regular receivers at most of the cattle fairs throughout the Presidency.”It is noted, in the Nellore Manual, that the Dommaras “are stated by the Nellore Tahsildar to possess mirāsi rights in some villages; that I take to mean that there is, in some villages, a customary contribution for tumblers and mendicants, which, according to Wilson, was made in Mysore the pretext for a tax named Dombar-lingada-vira-kaniki. This tax, under the name Dombar tafrik, was levied in Venkatagiri in 1801.” In the Madura district, Dommaras are found in some villages formerly owned by zamindars, and they call themselves children of the zamindars, by whom they were probably patronised.Being a criminal class, the Dommaras have a thief’s language of their own, of which the following are examples:—Bidam vadu, Dommara.Poothi, policeman.Marigam, pig.Goparam, seven.Dāsa-masa, prostitute.Kopparam, salt.Kaljodu, goldsmith.The Dommaras are said to receive into their community children of other castes, and women of doubtful morals, and to practice the custom of making Basavis (dedicated prostitutes).The Telugu Dommaras give as their gōtra Salava patchi, the name of a mythological bird. At times of marriage, they substitute a turmeric-dyed string consisting of 101 threads, called bondhu, for the golden tāli or bottu. The marriage ceremonies of the Ārē Dommaras are supervised by an old Basavi woman, and the golden marriage badge is tied round the bride’s neck by a Basavi.Ārē Dommara acrobat.Ārē Dommara acrobat.A Dommara, whom I interviewed at Coimbatore, carried a cotton bag containing a miscellaneous assortment of rubbish used in his capacity as medicine man and snake-charmer, which included a collection of spurious jackal horns (nari kompu), the hairs round which were stained with turmeric. To prove the genuineness thereof, he showed me not only the horn, but also the feet with nails complete, as evidence that the horns were not made from the nails. Being charged with manufacturing the horns, he swore, by placing his hand on the head of a child who accompanied him, that he was not deceiving me. The largest of the horns in his bag, he gravely informed me, was from a jackal which he dug out of its hole on the last new moon night. The possessors of such horns, he assured me, do not go out with thepack, and rarely leave their holes except to feed on dew, field rats, etc. These spurious horns are regarded as a talisman, and it is believed that he who owns one can command the realisation of every wish. (SeeKuruvikkāran.) An iron ring, which the Dommara was wearing on his wrist, was used as a cure for hernia, being heated and applied as a branding agent over the inguinal region. Lamp oil is then rubbed over the burn, and a secret medicine, mixed with fowl’s egg, administered. The ring was, he said, an ancestral heir-loom, and as such highly prized. To cure rheumatism in the big joints, he resorted to an ingenious form of dry cupping. A small incision is made with a piece of broken glass over the affected part, and the skin damped with water. The distal end of a cow’s horn, of which the tip has been removed, and plugged with wax, does duty for the cup. A hole is pierced through the wax with an iron needle, and, the horn being placed over the seat of disease, the air is withdrawn from it by suction with the mouth, and the hole in the wax stopped up. As the air is removed from the cavity of the horn, the skin rises up within it. To remove the horn, it is only necessary to readmit air by once more boring a hole through the wax. In a bad case, as many as three horns may be applied to the affected part. The Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford possesses dry-cupping apparatus, made of cow horn, from Mirzapur in Northern India and from Natal, and of antelope horn from an unrecorded locality in India. In cases of scorpion sting the Dommara rubbed up patent boluses with human milk or milk of the milk-hedge plant (Euphorbia Tirucalli), and applied them to the part. For chest pains he prescribed red ochre, and for infantile diseases myrabolam (Terminalia) fruits mixed with water. In cases ofsnake-bite, a black stone, said to be made of various drugs mixed together, and burnt, is placed over the seat of the bite, and will, it was stated, drop off of its own accord as soon as it has absorbed all the poison. It is then put into milk or water to extract the poison, and the fluid is thrown away as being dangerous to life if swallowed. As a remedy for the bite of a mad dog, a plant, which is kept a secret, is mixed with the milk of a white goat, pepper, garlic, and other ingredients, and administered internally. A single dose is said to effect a cure.At Tarikēri in Mysore, a wandering troupe of Ārē (Marātha) Dommaras performed before me. The women were decorated with jewels and flowers, and carried bells on their ankles. The men had a row of bells attached all round the lower edge of their short drawers. Before the performance commenced, a Pillayar (Ganēsa) was made with cowdung, and saluted. The entertainment took place in the open air amid the beating of drums, whistling, singing, and dialogue. The jests and antics of the equivalent of the circus clown were a source of much joy to the throng of villagers who collected to witness the tamāsha (spectacle). One of the principal performers, in the waits between his turns, played the drum, or took a suck at a hooka (tobacco pipe) which was passed round among the members of the troupe. The entertainment, in which both men and women took part, consisted of various acrobatic feats, turning summersaults and catherine wheels, stilt-walking, and clever feats on the tight rope. Finally a man, climbing up a lofty bamboo pole, spun himself rapidly round and round on the top of it by means of a socket in an iron plate tied to his loin cloth, into which a spike in the pole fitted.Dondia.—A title of Gaudo.Donga Dāsari.—Dāsari (servant of the god), Mr. Francis writes,61“in the strict sense of the word, is a religious mendicant of the Vaishnavite sect, who has formally devoted himself to an existence as such, and been formally included in the mendicant brotherhood by being branded on the shoulders with Vaishnavite symbols.” Far different are the Donga, or thief Dāsaris, who receive their name from the fact that “the men and women disguise themselves as Dāsaris, with perpendicular Vaishnava marks on their foreheads, and, carrying a lamp (Garuda kambum), a gong of bell-metal, a small drum called jagata, and a tuft of peacock feathers, go begging in the villages, and are at times treated with the sumptuous meals, including cakes offered to them as the disciples of Venkatēsvarlu.62”In an interesting article on the Donga Dāsaris, Mr. S. M. Natesa Sastri writes as follows.63“Quite opposed to the gudi (temple) Dāsaris are Donga Dāsaris. They are the most dreaded of the criminal classes in the Bellary district. In the early years of their settlement in Bellary, these Donga Dāsaris were said to have practiced kidnapping boys and girls of other castes to strengthen their number, and even now, as the practice stands, any person can become a Donga Dāsari though very few would like to become one. But, for all that, the chief castes who furnished members to this brotherhood of robbery were the scum of the Lingayats and the Kabbēras. Of course, none of the respectable members of these castes would join them, and only those who were excommunicated found a ready home among theseDonga Dāsaris. Sometimes Muhammadan budmāshes (bad-māsh, evil means of livelihood) and the worst characters from other castes, also become Donga Dāsaris. The way an alien is made a Donga Dāsari is as follows. The regular Donga Dāsaris take the party who wants to enter their brotherhood to the side of a river, make him bathe in oil, give him a new cloth, hold a council, and give a feast. They burn a twig of the sami (Prosopis spicigera) or margosa (Melia Azadirachta) tree, and slightly burn the tongue of the party who has joined them. This is the way of purification and acceptance of every new member, who, soon after the tongue-burning ceremony, is given a seat in the general company, and made to partake of the common feast. The Donga Dāsaris talk both Telugu and Kanarese. They have only two bedagas or family names, called Sunna Akki (thin rice) and Ghantelavāru (men of the bell). As the latter is a family name of the Kabbēras, it is an evidence that members of the latter community have joined the Donga Dāsaris. Even now Donga Dāsaris intermarry with Kabbēras,i.e., they accept any girl from a Kabbēra family in marriage to one of their sons, but do not give one of their daughters in marriage to a Kabbēra boy. Hanumān is their chief god. Venkatēsa, an incarnation of Vishnu, is also worshipped by many. But, in every one of their villages, they have a temple dedicated to their village goddess Huligavva or Ellamma, and it is only before these goddesses that they sacrifice sheep or fowls. Vows are undertaken for these village goddesses when children fall ill. In addition to this, these Donga Dāsaris are notorious for taking vows before starting on a thieving expedition, and the way these ceremonies are gone through is as follows. The gang, before starting on athieving expedition, proceed to a jungle near their village in the early part of the night, worship their favourite goddesses Huligavva or Ellamma, and sacrifice a sheep or fowl before her. They place one of their turbans on the head of the sheep or fowl that was sacrificed, as soon as the head falls on the ground. If the turban turns to the right, it is considered a good sign, the goddess having permitted them to proceed on the expedition; if to the left, they return home that night. Hanumān is also consulted in such expeditions, and the way in which it is done is as follows. They go to a Hanumān temple which is near their village, and, after worshipping him, garland him with a wreath of flowers. The garland hangs on both sides of the neck. If any flowers on the right side drop down first, it is considered as a permission granted by the god to start on plundering expeditions, and, conversely, these expeditions are never undertaken if any flowers happen to drop from the left side first. The Donga Dāsaris start on their thieving raids with their whole family, wife and children following. They are the great experts in house-breaking and theft, and children are taught thieving by their mothers when they are five or six years old. The mother takes her boy or girl to the nearest market, and shows the child some cloth or vessel, and asks it to bring it away. When it fails, it is thrashed, and, when stroke upon stroke falls upon its back, the only reply it is taught to give is that it knows nothing. This is considered to be the reply which the child, when it grows up to be a man or woman, has to give to the police authorities when it is caught in some crime and thrashed by them to confess. Whenever the Donga Dāsaris are caught by the police, they give false names and false castes. They have a cipher language among themselves. The DongaDāsari woman is very loose, but, if she go astray with a Brāhman, Lingayat, Kabbēra, Kuruba, Upparava, or Rājput, her tongue is burnt, and she is taken back into the community. Widow remarriage freely prevails. They avoid eating beef and pork, but have no objection to other kinds of flesh.”Donga Oddē.—The name for Oddēs who practice thieving as a profession.Dongayato.—A sub-division of Gaudo.Dongrudiya.—A sub-division of Māli.Dora.—Dora, meaning lord, has been returned as the title of numerous classes, which include Bōya, Ekāri, Jātāpu, Konda Dora, Mutrācha, Patra, Telaga, Velama, and Yānāti. The hill Kois or Koyis of the Godāvari district are known as Koi Dora or Doralu (lords). I am told that, in some parts of the Telugu country, if one hears a native referred to as Dora, he will generally turn out to be a Velama; and that there is the following gradation in the social scale:—Velama Dora = Velama Esquire.Kamma Vāru = Mr. Kamma.Kapu = Plain Kāpu, without an honorific suffix.In Southern India, Dorai or Durai (Master) is the equivalent of the northern Sāhib, and Dorasāni (Mistress) of Memsāhib.It is noted by Sir A. J. Arbuthnot64that “the appellation by which Sir Thomas Munro was most commonly known in the Ceded districts was that of Colonel Dora. And to this day it is considered a sufficient answer to enquiries regarding the reason for any Revenue Rule, that it was laid down by the Colonel Dora.”Dorabidda, or children of chiefs, is the name by which Bōyas, who claim to be descended from Poligars (feudal chiefs) call themselves.Drāvida.—A sub-division of Kamsala. South Indian Brāhmans are called Drāvidas.Dūbaduba.—Recorded, at times of census, as an Oriya form of Budubudukala.Duddu(money).—An exogamous sept of Māla.Dūdēkula.—The Dūdēkulas are described by Mr. H. A. Stuart65as “Muhammadans who have taken to the trade of cotton-cleaning (dūde, cotton; ekula, to clean). By the Tamils they are called Panjāri or Panjukotti, which have the same significance. Though Muhammadans, they have adopted or retained many of the customs of the Hindus around them, tying a tāli to the bride at marriage, being very ignorant of the Muhammadan religion, and even joining in Hindu worship as far as allowable. Circumcision is, however, invariable, and they are much given to the worship of Muhammadan saints. In dress they resemble the Hindus, and often shave off the beard, but do not leave a single lock of hair upon the head, as most Hindus do. Over three hundred Hindus have returned their caste as either Dūdēkula or Panjāri, but these are probably members of other castes, who call themselves Dūdēkula as they are engaged in cotton-cleaning.”The Dūdēkulas are described by Mr. W. Francis66as “a Muhammadan caste of cotton-cleaners, and rope and tape-makers. They are either converts to Islām, or the progeny of unions between Musalmans and the women of the country. Consequently they generally speak the Dravidian languages—either Canarese or Telugu—butsome of them speak Hindustāni also. Their customs are a mixture of those of the Musalmans and the Hindus. Inheritance is apparently according to Muhammadan law. They pray in mosques, and circumcise their boys, and yet some of them observe the Hindu festivals. They worship their tools at Bakrid and not at the Dasara; they raise the azān or Muhammadan call to prayers at sunset, and they pray at the tombs of Musalman saints.” In the Vizagapatam district, the Dūdēkulas are described as beating cotton, and blowing horns.For the following note on the Dūdēkulas of the Ceded Districts, I am indebted to Mr. Haji Khaja Hussain. They claim Bava Faqrud-dīn Pīr of Penukonda in the Anantapur district as their patron saint. Large numbers of Muhammadans, including Dūdēkulas, collect at the annual festival (mēla) at his shrine, and offer their homage in the shape of a fatiha. This, meaning opener, is the name of the first chapter of the Korān, which is repeated when prayers are offered for the souls of the departed. For this ceremony a pilau, made of flesh, rice and ghī (clarified butter) is prepared, and the Khāzi repeats the chapter, and offers the food to the soul of the deceased saint or relation.The story of Faqrud-dīn Pīr is as follows. He was born in A.H. 564 (about A.D. 1122), and was King of Seistan in Persia. One day, while he was administering justice, a merchant brought some horses before him for sale. His attention was diverted, and he became for a time absorbed in contemplation of the beauty of one of the horses. Awakening from his reverie, he blamed himself for allowing his thoughts to wander when he was engaged in the most sacred of his duties as a king. He summoned a meeting of all the learned moulvis in his kingdom, and enquired of them what was the penaltyfor his conduct. They unanimously decreed that he should abdicate. Accordingly he placed his brother on the throne, and, becoming a dervish, came to India, and wandered about in the jungles. Eventually he arrived at Trichinopoly, and there met the celebrated saint Tabri-Ālam, whose disciple he became. After his admission into holy orders, he was told to travel about, and plant his miswāk wherever he halted, and regard the place where it sprouted as his permanent residence. The miswāk, or tooth-brush, is a piece of the root of the pīlū tree (Salvadora persica), which is used by Muhammadans, and especially Fakirs, for cleaning the teeth. When Bava Faqrud-dīn arrived at Penukonda hill, he, as usual, planted the miswāk, which sprouted. He accordingly decided to make this spot his permanent abode. But there was close by an important Hindu temple, and the idea of a Muhammadan settling close to it enraged the Hindus, who asked him to leave. He not only refused to do so, but allowed his disciples, of whom a number had collected, to slaughter a sacred bull belonging to the temple. The Hindus accordingly decided to kill Faqrud-dīn and his disciples. The Rāja collected an armed force, and demanded the restoration of the bull. Faqrud-dīn ordered one of his disciples to bring before him the skin, head, feet and tail of the animal, which had been preserved. Striking the skin with his staff, he exclaimed “Rise, Oh! bull, at the command of God.” The animal immediately rose in a complete state of restoration, and would not leave the presence of his preserver. Alarmed at this miracle, the Hindus brandished their swords and spears, and were about to fall on the Muhammadans, when a dust-storm arose and blinded them. In their confusion, they began to slay each other, and left the spot in dismay. TheRāja then resolved to kill the Muhammadans by poisoning them. He prepared some cakes mixed with poison, and sent them to Faqrud-dīn for distribution among his disciples. The saint, though he knew that the cakes were poisoned, partook thereof of himself, as also did his disciples, without any evil effect. A few days afterwards, the Rāja was attacked with colic, and his case was given up by the court physicians as hopeless. As a last resort, he was taken before Faqrud-dīn, who offered him one of the poisoned cakes, which cured him. Falling at his feet, the Rāja begged for pardon, and offered the village of Penukonda to Faqrud-dīn as a jaghīr (annuity). This offer was declined, and the saint asked that the temple should be converted into a mosque. The Rāja granted this request, and it is said that large numbers of Hindus embraced the Muhammadan religion, and were the ancestors of the Dūdēkulas.The Dūdēkulas, like the Hindus, like to possess some visible symbol for worship, and they enrol great personages who have died among the number of those at whose graves they worship. So essential is this grave worship that, if a place is without one, a grave is erected in the name of some saint. Such a thing has happened in recent times in Banganapalle. A Fakir, named Allā Bakhsh, died at Kurnool. A Dūdēkula of the Banganapalle State visited his grave, took away a lump of earth from the ground near it, and buried it in a village ten miles from Banganapalle. A shrine was erected over it in the name of the saint, and has become very famous for the miracles which are performed at it. An annual festival is held, which is attended by large numbers of Muhammadans and Dūdēkulas.Some Dūdēkulas have names which, though at first sight they seem to be Hindu, are really Muhammadan.For example, Kambannah is a corruption of Kamal Sahib, and Sakali, which in Telugu means a washerman, seems to be an altered form of Sheik Āli. Though Dūdēkulas say that they are Muhammadans of the Sheik sect, the name Sheik is only occasionally used as a prefix,e.g., Sheik Hussain or Sheik Āli. Names of males are Hussain Sa, Fakir Sa, and Khāsim Sa. Sa is an abbreviated form of Sahib. One old Dūdēkula stated that the title Sahib was intended for pucka (genuine) Muhammadans, and that the Dūdēkulas could not lay claim to the title in its entirety. Instead of Sa, Bhai, meaning brother, is sometimes used as a suffix to the name,e.g., Ghudu Bhai. Ghudu, meaning ash-heap, is an opprobrious name given to children of those whose offspring have died young, in the hope of securing long life to them. The child is taken, immediately after birth, to an ash-heap, where some of the ashes are sprinkled over it. Some Dūdēkulas adopt the Hindu termination appa (father), anna (brother), or gadu,e.g., Pullanna, Nāganna, Yerkalappa, Hussaingadu, Hussainappa. Typical names of females are Roshammā, Jamalammā, and Madarammā. They have dropped the title Bibi or Bi, and adopted the Hindu title ammā (mother).The ceremony of naming a child is generally performed on the sixth day after its birth. The choice of a name is entrusted to an elderly female member of the family. In some cases, the name of a deceased ancestor who lived to an advanced age is taken. If a child dies prematurely, there is a superstitious prejudice against its name, which is avoided by the family. Very frequently a father and son, and sometimes two or three brothers, have the same name. In such a case prefixes are added to their names as a means of distinguishing them,e.g., Pedda (big), Nadpi (middle), Chinna (little). Sometimestwo names are assumed by an individual, one a Hindu name for every day use, the other Muhammadan for ceremonial occasions.The Dūdēkulas depend for the performance of their ceremonies largely on the Khāzi, by whom even the killing of a fowl for domestic purposes has to be carried out. The Dūdēkula, like other Muhammadans, is averse to taking animal life without due religious rites, and the zabh, or killing of an animal for food, is an important matter. One who is about to do so should first make vazu (ablution), by cleaning his teeth and washing his mouth, hands, face, forearms, head and feet. He should then face the west, and an assistant holds the animal to be slaughtered upside down, and facing west. Water is poured into its mouth, and the words Bismillā hi Allā hu Akbar uttered. The operator then cuts the throat, taking care that the jugular veins are divided. In remote villages, where a Khāzi is not available, the Dūdēkulas keep a sacrificial knife, which has been sanctified by the Khāzi repeating over it the same words from the Korān as are used when an animal is slaughtered.The first words which a Muhammadan child should hear are those of the azān, or call to prayer, which are uttered in its ear immediately after birth. This ceremony is observed by those Dūdēkulas who live in towns or big villages, or can afford the services of a Khāzi. It is noted by Mr. Francis that the Dūdēkulas raise the azān at sunset. A few, who have been through a course of religious instruction at a Madrasa (school), may be able to do this. A Muhammadan is supposed to raise the azān five times daily, viz., before sunrise, between noon and 3P.M., between 4 and 6P.M., at sunset, and between 8P.M.and midnight.At the naming of an infant on the sixth day, the Dūdēkulas do not, like other Muhammadans, perform the aguigā ceremony, which consists of shaving the child’s head, and sacrificing a he-goat. Children are circumcised before the tenth year. On such occasions the Muhammadans generally invite their friends, and distribute sweets and pān-supāri (betel leaf and areca nuts). The Dūdēkulas simply send for a barber, Hindu or Muhammadan, who performs the operation in the presence of a Khāzi, if one happens to be available. When a girl reaches puberty, the Dūdēkulas invite their friends to a feast. Other Muhammadans, on the contrary, keep the fact a secret.At the betrothal ceremony, when sweets and pān-supāri are taken by the future bridegroom and his party to the house of the girl whom he seeks in marriage, the female members of both families, and the girl herself, are present. This fact shows the absence of the Muhammadan gōsha system among Dūdēkulas. A Muhammadan wedding lasts over five or six days, whereas the ceremonies are, among the Dūdēkulas, completed within twenty-four hours. On the night preceding the nikka day, a pilau is prepared, and a feast is held at the bridegroom’s house. On the following morning, when it is still dark, the bridegroom, accompanied by his relations, starts on horseback in procession, with beating of drums and letting off of fireworks. The procession arrives at the bride’s house before sunrise. The Khāzi is sent for, and the mahr is settled. This is a nominal gift settled on the wife before marriage by the bridegroom. On the death of a husband, a widow has priority of claim on his property to the promised amount of the mahr. Two male witnesses are sent to the bride, to obtain her assent to the union, and to the amount ofthe mahr. The Khāzi, being an orthodox Muhammadan, treats the Dūdēkula bride as strictly gōsha for the time being, and, therefore, selects two of her near relatives as witnesses. The lutcha (marriage badge), consisting of a single or double string of beads, is brought in a cup filled with sandal paste.The Khāzi chants the marriage service, and sends the lutcha in to the bride with his blessing. It is tied round her neck by the female relations of the bridegroom, and the marriage rites are over.The usual Muhammadan form of greeting among Muhammadans is the familiar “Peace be with you.” “And with you be peace.” When a Dūdēkula greets a Muhammadan, he simply bows, and, with members of his own community, uses a Telugu form of salutation,e.g., nīku mokkutāmu.The Dūdēkulas, male and female, dress exactly like Hindus, but, as a rule, the men do not shave their beard.Disputes, and social questions affecting the community, are settled by a Khāzi.With the increase in cotton mills, and the decline of the indigenous hand-weaving industry, the demand for cotton-cleaning labour has diminished, and some Dūdēkulas have, of necessity, taken to agriculture. Land-owners are very scarce among them, but some are abkāri (liquor) contractors, village schoolmasters, and quack doctors. In the Ceded Districts, the cotton-cleaning industry is solely confined to the Dūdēkulas.The synonyms of Dūdēkula, Ladaf and Nūrbāsh, recorded at times of census, are corruptions of Nad-dāf (a cotton dresser) and Nūrbāf (weaving).Dūdi.—A title of Kurumos, who officiate as priests at the temples of village deities.Dūdi(cotton)Balija.—A name for traders in cotton in the Telugu country, and an occupational sub-division of Kōmati.Durga(fort).—A gōtra of Kurni.Dūtan.—Recorded, in the Travancore Census Report, as a synonym of Āri.Dyavana(tortoise).—An exogamous sept of Mogēr.
cm.Padma Sālē159.9Sūkūn Sālē160.3Togata160.5Suka Sālē161.1Dēvēndra.—A name assumed by some Pallans, who claim to be descended from the king of the gods (dēvas).Dhabba(split bamboo).—Dhabba or Dhabbai is the name of a sub-division of Koravas, who split bamboos, and make various articles therefrom.Dhakkado.—A small mixed class of Oriya cultivators, concerning whom there is a proverb that a Dhakkado does not know his father. They are described, in the Census Report, 1891, as “a caste of cultivators found in the Jeypore agency tracts. They are said to be the offspring of a Brāhman and a Sūdra girl, and, though living on the hills, they are not an uncivilised hill tribe. Some prepare and sell the sacred thread, others are confectioners. They wear the sacred thread, and do not drink water from the hands of any except Brāhmans. Girls are married before puberty, and widow marriage is practiced. They are flesh-eaters, and their dead are usually buried.”In a note on the Dhakkados, Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao writes that “the illegitimate descendant of a Brāhman and a hill woman of the non-polluting castes is said to be known as a Dhakkado. The Dhakkados assume Brāhmanical names, but, as regards marriages, funerals, etc., follow the customs of their mother’s caste. Her caste people intermarry with her children. ADhakkado usually follows the occupation of his mother’s caste. Thus one whose mother is a Kevuto follows the calling of fishing or plying boats on rivers, one whose mother is a Bhumia is an agriculturist, and so on.”Dhakūr.—Stated, in the Manual of the Vizagapatam district, to be illegitimate children of Brāhmans, who wear the paieta (sacred thread).Dhanapāla.—A sub-division of Gollas, who guard treasure while it is in transit.Dhangar.—Dhangar, or Donigar, is recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as a Marāthi caste of shepherds and cattle-breeders. I gather, from a note45on the Dhangars of the Kanara district in the Bombay Presidency, that “the word Dhangar is generally derived from the Sanskrit dhenu, a cow. Their home speech is Marāthi, but they can speak Kanarese. They keep a special breed of cows and buffaloes, known as Dhangar mhasis and Dhangar gāis which are the largest cattle in Kanara. Many of Shivāji’s infantry were Sātāra Dhangars.”Dhaniāla(coriander).—An exogamous sept of Kamma. Dhaniāla Jāti, or coriander caste, is an opprobrious name applied to Kōmatis, indicating that, in business transactions, they must be crushed as coriander fruits are crushed before the seed is sown.Dhāre.—An exogamous sept of Kuruba. In the Canara country, the essential and binding part of the marriage ceremony is called dhāre (seeBant).Dharmarāja.—An exogamous sept of the Irulas of North Arcot. Dharmarāja was the eldest of the five Pāndavas, the heroes of the Mahābhāratha.Dhippo(light).—An exogamous sept of Bhondāri. The members thereof may not blow out lights, or extinguish them in any other way. They will not light lamps without being madi,i.e., wearing silk cloths, or cloths washed and dried after bathing.Dhōbi.—A name used for washerman by Anglo-Indians all over India. The word is said to be derived from dhōha, Sanskrit, dhāv, to wash. A whitish grey sandy efflorescence, found in many places, from which, by boiling and the addition of quicklime, an alkali of considerable strength is obtained, is called Dhōbi’s earth.46“The expression dhobie itch,” Manson writes,47“although applied to any itching ringworm-like affection of any part of the skin, most commonly refers to some form of epiphytic disease of the crutch or axilla (armpit).” The disease is very generally supposed to be communicated by clothes from the wash, but Manson is of opinion that the belief that it is contracted from clothes which have been contaminated by the washerman is probably not very well founded.Dhōbi is the name, by which the washerman caste of the Oriyas is known. “They are said,” Mr. Francis writes,48“to have come originally from Orissa. Girls are generally married before maturity, and, if this is not possible, they have to be married to a sword or a tree, before they can be wedded to a man. Their ordinary marriage ceremonies are as follows. The bridal pair bathe in water brought from seven different houses. The bridegroom puts a bangle on the bride’s arm (this is the binding part of the ceremony); the left and right wrists of the bride and bridegroom are tied together; betel leaf and nut are tied in a corner of the bride’s cloth, and amyrabolam (Terminaliafruit) in that of the bridegroom; and finally the people present in the pandal (booth) throw rice and saffron (turmeric) over them. Widows and divorced women may marry again. They are Vaishnavites, but some of them also worship Kāli or Durga. They employ Bairāgis, and occasionally Brāhmans, as their priests. They burn their dead, and perform srāddha (annual memorial ceremony). Their titles are Chetti (or Mahā Chetti) and Bēhara.” The custom of the bridal pair bathing in water from seven different houses obtains among many Oriya castes, including Brāhmans. It is known by the name of pāni-tula. The water is brought by married girls, who have not reached puberty, on the night preceding the wedding day, and the bride and bridegroom wash in it before dawn. This bath is called koili pāni snāno, or cuckoo water-bath. The koil is the Indian koel or cuckoo (Eudynamis honorata), whose crescendo cry ku-il, ku-il, is trying to the nerves during the hot season.The following proverbs49relating to washermen may be quoted:—Get a new washerman, and an old barber.The washerman knows the defects of the village (i.e., he learns a good deal about the private affairs of the various families, when receiving and delivering the clothes).When a washerman gets sick, his sickness must leave him at the stone. The stone referred to is the large stone, on which the washerman cleans cloths, and the proverb denotes that, however sick a washerman may be, his work must be done.Dhoddi.—Dhoddi, meaning a court or back-yard, cattle-pen, or sheep-fold, has been recorded as an exogamous sept of Dēvānga, Koppala Velama, Kama Sālē, Māla, and Yānādi.Dhoddiyan.—A name given by Tamilians to Jōgis.Dhollo.—Dhollo is recorded in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as the same as Doluva. A correspondent informs me that Dhollo is said to be different from Doluva.Dhōma(gnat or mosquito).—An exogamous sept of Māla.Dhondapu(Cephalandra indica).—An exogamous sept of Dēvānga. The fruit is one of the commonest of native vegetables, and cooked in curries.Dhōni(boat).—An exogamous sept of Mīla and Oruganti Kāpu. In a paper on the native vessels of South India by Mr. Edge, published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, the dhōni is described as “a vessel of ark-like form, about 70 feet long, 20 feet broad, and 11 feet deep, with a flat bottom or keel part, which at the broadest place is 7 feet.“The whole equipment of these rude vessels, as well as their construction, is the most coarse and unseaworthy that I have ever seen.” The dhōni, with masts, is represented in the ancient lead and copper coinage of Southern India.Dhor.—In the Madras Census Report, 1901, a few (164) individuals were returned as “Dhēr, a low caste of Marāthi leather workers.” They were, I gather from the Bombay Gazetteer, Dhors or tanners who dwell in various parts of the Bombay Presidency, and whose home speech, names and surnames seem to show that they have come from the Marātha country.Dhūdala(calves).—An exogamous sept of Thūmati Golla.Dhudho(milk).—A sept of Omanaito.Dhuggāni(money).—An exogamous sept of Dēvānga.Dhūliya.—Dhūliya or Dūlia is a small class of Oriya cultivators, some of whom wear the sacred thread, and employ Boishnobs as their priests. Marriage before puberty is not compulsory, and widows can remarry. They eat flesh. The dead are cremated.50The name is said to be derived from dhuli, dust, with which those who work in the fields are covered. Dhūliya also means carriers of dhulis (dhoolies), which are a form of palanquin.Didāvi.—A sub-division of Poroja.Digambara(space-clad or sky-clad,i.e., nude).—One of the two main divisions of the Jains. The Digambaras are said51to “regard absolute nudity as the indispensable sign of holiness, though the advance of civilisation has compelled them to depart from the practice of their theory.”Dīvar.—SeeDēva.Diyāsi.—An exogamous sept of Dandāsi. The members thereof show special reverence for the sun, and cloths, mokkutos (forehead chaplets), garlands, and other articles to be used by the bride and bridegroom at a wedding are placed outside the house, so that they may be exposed to it.Dolaiya.—A title of Doluva and Odia.Dolobēhara.—The name of headmen or their assistants among many Oriya castes. In some cases,e.g., among the Haddis, the name is used as a title by families, members of which are headmen.Doluva.—The Doluvas of Ganjam are, according to the Madras Census Report, 1891, “supposed to be the descendants of the old Rājahs by their concubines, and were employed as soldiers and attendants. The name issaid to be derived from the Sanskrit dola, meaning army.” The Doluvas claim to be descended from the Puri Rājahs by their concubines, and say that some of them were employed as sirdars and paiks under these Rājahs. They are said to have accompanied a certain Puri Rājah who came south to wage war, and to have settled in Ganjam. They are at the present day mainly engaged in agriculture, though some are traders, bricklayers, cart-drivers, etc. The caste seems to be divided into five sections, named Kondaiyito, Lenka, Rabba, Pottia, and Beharania, of which the first two are numerically the strongest and most widely distributed. Kondaiyito is said to be derived from kondo, an arrow, and to indicate warrior. The Kondaiyitos sometimes style themselves Rājah Doluvas, and claim superiority over the other sections. It is noted, in the Madras Census Report, 1891, that “Oriya Zamindars get wives from this sub-division, but the men of it cannot marry into the Zamindar’s families. They wear the sacred thread, and are writers.” In former days, the title writer was applied to the junior grade of Civil Servants of the East India Company. It is now used to denote a copying clerk in an office.Various titles occur among members of the caste,e.g., Bissoyi, Biswālo, Dolei, Jenna, Kottiya, Mahanti, Majhi, Nāhako, Porida, Rāvuto, Sāmulo, and Sāni.The ordinary caste council system, with a hereditary headman, seems to be absent among the Doluvas, and the affairs of the caste are settled by leading members thereof.The Doluvas are Paramarthos, following the Chaitanya form of Vaishnavism, and wearing a rosary of tulsi (Ocimum sanctum) beads. They further worship various Tākurānis (village deities), among which are Kālva, Bāgadēvi, Kotari, Mahēswari, and Manickēswari. Theyare in some places very particular regarding the performance of srādh (memorial ceremony), which is carried out annually in the following manner. On the night before the srādh day, a room is prepared for the reception of the soul of the deceased. This room is called pitru bharano (reception of the ancestor). The floor thereof is cleansed with cow-dung water, and a lamp fed with ghī (clarified butter) is placed on it by the side of a plank. On this plank a new cloth is laid for the reception of various articles for worship,e.g., sacred grass,Zizyphus jujubaleaves, flowers, etc. In front of the plank a brass vessel, containing water and a tooth brush ofAchyranthes asperaroot, is placed. The dead person’s son throws rice andZizyphusleaves into the air, and calls on the deceased to come and give a blessing on the following day. The room is then locked, and the lamp kept burning in it throughout the night. On the following day, all old pots are thrown away and, after a small space has been cleaned on the floor of the house, a pattern is drawn thereon with flour in the form of a square or oblong with twelve divisions. On each division a jak (Artocarpus integrifolia) leaf is placed, and on each leaf the son puts cooked rice and vegetables. A vessel containingAchyranthesroot, and a plank with a new cloth on it, are set by the side of the pattern. After worship has been performed and food offered, the cloth is presented to a Brāhman, and the various articles used in the ceremonial are thrown into water.Dōmb.—The name Dōmb or Dōmbo is said to be derived from the word dumba, meaning devil, in reference to the thieving propensities of the tribe. The Dōmbas, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,52“are a Dravidiancaste of weavers and menials, found in the hill tracts of Vizagapatam. This caste appears to be an offshoot of the Dōm caste of Bengal, Behār, and the North-Western Provinces. Like the Dōms, the Dōmbas are regarded with disgust, because they eat beef, pork, horse-flesh, rats, and the flesh of animals which have died a natural death, and both are considered to be Chandālas or Pariahs by the Bengālis and the Uriyas. The Dōmbs weave the cloths and blankets worn by the hill people, but, like the Pariahs of the plains, they are also labourers, scavengers, etc. Some of them are extensively engaged in trade, and they have, as a rule, more knowledge of the world than the ryots who despise them. They are great drunkards.” In the Census Report, 1871, it was noted that “in many villages, the Dōms carry on the occupation of weaving, but, in and around Jaipur, they are employed as horse-keepers, tom-tom beaters, scavengers, and in other menial duties. Notwithstanding their abject position in the social scale, some signs of progress may be detected amongst them. They are assuming the occupation, in many instances, of petty hucksters, eking out a livelihood by taking advantage of the small difference in rates between market and market.”“The Dōmbs,” Mr. F. Fawcett writes,53“are an outcast jungle people, who inhabit the forests on the high lands fifty to eighty or a hundred miles from the east coast, about Vizagapatam. Being outcast, they are never allowed to live within a village, but have their own little hamlet adjoining a village proper, inhabited by people of various superior castes. It is fair to say that the Dōmbs are akin to the Pānos of the adjoiningKhond country, a Pariah folk who live amongst the Khonds, and used to supply the human victims for the Meriah sacrifices. Indeed, the Khonds, who hold them in contemptuous inferiority, call them Dōmbas as a sort of alternative title to Pānos. The Paidis of the adjoining Savara or Saora country are also, doubtless, kinsmen of the Dōmbs. [The same man is said to be called Paidi by Telugus, Dōmbo by the Savaras, and Pāno by the Khonds. It is noted in the Census Report, 1881, that the Pāno quarters in Khond villages are called Dōmbo Sai.] In most respects their condition is a very poor one. Though they live in the best part of the Presidency for game, they know absolutely nothing of hunting, and cannot even handle a bow and arrow. They have, however, one respectable quality, industry, and are the weavers, traders, and money-lenders of the hills, being very useful as middlemen between the Khonds, Sauras, Gadabas, and other hill people on the one hand, and the traders of the plains on the other. I am informed, on good authority, that there are some Dōmbs who rise higher than this, but cannot say whether these are, or are not crosses with superior races. Most likely they are, for most of the Dōmbs are arrant thieves. It was this propensity for thieving, in fact, which had landed some hundreds of them in the jail at Vizagapatam when I visited that place, and gave me an opportunity of recording their measurements.” The averages of the more important of these measurements are as follows:—cm.Stature161.9Cephalic length18.8Cephalic breadth14.3Cephalic index75.6Nasal index86.5It is noted by the Missionary Gloyer54that the colour of the skin of the Dōmbs varies from very dark to yellow, and their height from that of an Aryan to the short stature of an aboriginal, and that there is a corresponding variation in facial type.For the following note on the Dōmbs, I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. They are the weavers, traders, musicians, beggars, and money-lenders of the hills. Some own cattle, and cultivate. The hill people in the interior are entirely dependent on them for their clothing. A few Dōmb families are generally found to each village. They act as middlemen between the hill people and the Kōmati traders. Their profits are said to be large, and their children are, in some places, found attending hill schools. As musicians, they play on the drum and pipe. They are the hereditary musicians of the Mahārāja of Jeypore. A Dōmb beggar, when engaged in his professional calling, goes about from door to door, playing on a little pipe. Their supposed powers over devils and witches result in their being consulted when troubles appear. Though the Dōmbs are regarded as a low and polluting class, they will not eat at the hands of Kōmatis, Bhondāris, or Ghāsis. Some Dōmbas have become converts to Christianity through missionary influence.In the Madras Census Report, 1891, the following sections of the Dōmbs are recorded:—Onomia, Odia, Māndiri, Mirgām, and Kohara. The sub-divisions, however, seem to be as follows:—Mirigāni, Kobbiriya, Odiya, Sōdabisiya, Māndiri, and Andiniya. There are also various septs, of which the following have been recorded among the Odiyas:—Bhāg (tiger), Bālu (bear),Nāg (cobra), Hanumān (the monkey god), Kochchipo (tortoise), Bengri (frog), Kukra (dog), Surya (sun), Matsya (fish), and Jaikonda (lizard). It is noted by Mr. Fawcett that “monkeys, frogs, and cobras are taboo, and also the sunāri tree (Ochna squarrosa). The big lizard, cobras, frogs, and the crabs which are found in the paddy fields, and are usually eaten by jungle people, may not be eaten.”When a girl reaches puberty, she remains outside the hut for five days, and then bathes at the nearest stream, and is presented with a new cloth. In honour of the event, drink is distributed among her relatives. Girls are usually married after puberty. A man can claim his paternal aunt’s daughter in marriage. When a proposal of marriage is to be made, the suitor carries some pots of liquor, usually worth two rupees, to the girl’s house, and deposits them in front of it. If her parents consent to the match, they take the pots inside, and drink some of the liquor. After some time has elapsed, more liquor, worth five rupees, is taken to the girl’s house. A reduction in the quantity of liquor is made when a man is proposing for the hand of his paternal aunt’s daughter, and, on the second occasion, the liquor will only be worth three rupees. A similar reduction is made in the jholla tonka, or bride price. On the wedding day, the bridegroom goes, accompanied by his relations, to the bride’s home, where, at the auspicious moment fixed by the Desāri, his father presents new cloths to himself and the bride, which they put on. They stand before the hut, and on each is placed a cloth with a myrabolam (Terminalia) seed, rice, and a few copper coins tied up in it. The bridegroom’s right little finger is linked with the left little finger of the bride, and they enter the hut. On the following day, the newlymarried couple repair to the home of the bridegroom. On the third day, they are bathed in turmeric water, a pig is killed, and a feast is held. On the ninth day, the knots in the cloths, containing the myrabolams, rice, and coins, are untied, and the marriage ceremonies are at an end. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and a younger brother usually marries the widow of his elder brother.It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “some of the Dōmbus of the Parvatipur Agency follow many of the customs of the low-country castes, including mēnarikam (marriage with the maternal uncle’s daughter), and say they are the same as the Paidis (or Paidi Mālas) of the plains adjoining, with whom they intermarry.”The corpses of the more prosperous Dōmbs are usually cremated. The wood of the sunāri tree and relli (Cassia fistula) may not be used for the pyre. The son or husband of a deceased person has his head, moustache, and armpits shaved on the tenth day.Dōmb women, and women of other tribes in the Jeypore Agency tracts, wear silver ear ornaments called nāgul, representing a cobra just about to strike with tongue protruded. Similar ornaments of gold, called nāga pōgulu (cobra-shaped earrings), are worn by women of some Telugu castes in the plains of Vizagapatam.The personal names of the Dōmbs are, as among other Oriya castes, often those of the day of the week on which the individual was born.Concerning the religion of the Dōmbs, Mr. Fawcett notes that “their chief god—probably an ancestral spirit—is called Kaluga. There is one in each village, in the headman’s house. The deity is represented by a pie piece (copper coin), placed in or over a new earthenpot smeared with rice and turmeric powder. During worship, a silk cloth, a new cloth, or a wet cloth may be worn, but one must not dress in leaves. Before the mangoes are eaten, the first-fruits are offered to the moon, at the full moon of the month Chitra.”“When,” Gloyer writes, “a house has to be built, the first thing is to select a favourable spot, to which few evil spirits (dūmas) resort. At this spot they put, in several places, three grains of rice arranged in such a way that the two lower grains support the upper one. To protect the grains, they pile up stones round them, and the whole is lightly covered with earth. When, after some time, they find on inspection that the upper grain has fallen off, the spot is regarded as unlucky, and must not be used. If the position of the grains remains unchanged, the omen is regarded as auspicious. They drive in the first post, which must have a certain length, say of five, seven, or nine ells, the ell being measured from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow. The post is covered on the top with rice straw, leaves, and shrubs, so that birds may not foul it, which would be regarded as an evil omen. [In Madras, a story is current, with reference to the statue of Sir Thomas Munro, that he seized upon all the rice depôts, and starved the people to death by selling rice in egg-shells at one shell for a rupee, and, to punish him, the Government erected the statue in an open place, so that the birds of the air might insult him by polluting his face.] In measuring the house, odd numbers play an important part. The number four (pura, or full number), however, forms the proper measurement, whereby they measure the size of the house, according to the pleasure of the builder. But now the Dissary (Dēsāri) decides whether the house shall be built on the nandi, dua, or tia system, nandisignifying one, dua two, and tia three. This number of ells must be added to the measurement of the house. Supposing that the length of the house is twelve ells, then it will be necessary to add one ell according to the nandi system, so that the length amounts to thirteen ells. The number four can only be used for stables.”“The Dūmas,” Gloyer continues, “are represented as souls of the deceased, which roam about without a home, so as to cause to mankind all possible harm. At the birth of a child, the Dūma must be invited in a friendly manner to provide the child with a soul, and protect it against evil. For this purpose, a fowl is killed on the ninth day, a bone (beinknochen) detached, and pressed in to the hand of the infant. The relations are seated in solemn silence, and utter the formula:—When grandfather, grandmother, father, or brother comes, throw away the bone, and we will truly believe it. No sooner does the sprawling and excited infant drop the bone, than the Dūmas are come, and boisterous glee prevails. The Dūmas occasionally give vent to their ghostly sounds, and cause no little consternation among the inmates of a house, who hide from fear. Cunning thieves know how to rob the superstitious by employing instruments with a subdued tone (dumpftönende), or by emitting deep sounds from the chest. The yearly sacrifice to a Dūma consists of a black fowl and strong brandy. If a member of a family falls ill, an extraordinary sacrifice has to be offered up. The Dūma is not regarded only as an evil spirit, but also as a tutelary deity. He protects one against the treacherous attacks of witches. A place is prepared for him in the door-hinge, or a fishing-net, wherein he lives, is placed over the door. The witches must count all the knots of the net, before they can enter. Devil worship is closely connected with that of theDūma. The devil’s priests, and in rare cases priestesses, effect communion between the people and the Dūmas by a sort of possession, which the spirit, entering into them, is said to give rise to. This condition, which is produced by intoxicating drink and the fumes of burning incense, gives rise to revolting cramp-like contortions, and muscular quiverings. In this state, they are wont to communicate what sacrifices the spirits require. On special occasions, they fall into a frenzied state, in which they cut their flesh with sharp instruments, or pass long, thin iron bars through the tongue and cheeks, during which operation no blood must flow. For this purpose, the instruments are rubbed all over with some blood-congealing material or sap. They also affect sitting on a sacred swing, armed with long iron nails. [Mr. G. F. Paddison informs me that he once saw a villager in the Vizagapatam district, sitting outside the house, while groans proceeded from within. He explained that he was ill, and his wife was swinging on nails with their points upwards, to cure him.] The devil called Jom Duto, or messenger of the going, is believed to be a one-eyed, limping, black individual, whose hair is twisted into a frightfully long horn, while one foot is very long, and the other resembles the hoof of a buffalo. He makes his appearance at the death-bed, in order to drag his victim to the realm of torture.”Children are supposed to be born without souls, and to be afterwards chosen as an abode by the soul of an ancestor. The coming of the ancestor is signalised by the child dropping a chicken bone which has been thrust into its hand, and much rejoicing follows among the assembled relations.55Mr. Paddison tells me that some Dōmbs are reputed to be able to pour blazing oil over their bodies, without suffering any hurt; and one man is said to have had a miraculous power of hardening his skin, so that any one could have a free shot at him, without hurting him. He further narrates that, at Sujanakōta in the Vizagapatam district, the Dōmbs, notwithstanding frequent warnings, put devils into two successive schoolmasters.Various tattoo devices, borne by the Dōmbs examined by Mr. Fawcett, are figured and described by him. “These patterns,” he writes, “were said to be, one and all, purely ornamental, and not in any way connected with totems, or tribal emblems.” Risley, however,56regards “four out of the twelve designs as pretty closely related to the religion and mythology of the tribe; two are totems and two have reference to the traditional avocations. Nos. 11 and 12 represent a classical scene in Dōm folk-lore, the story of King Haris-Chandra, who was so generous that he gave all he had to the poor and sold himself to a Dōm at Benares, who employed him to watch his cremation ground at night. While he was thus engaged, his wife, who had also been sold for charitable purposes, came to burn the body of her son. She had no money to pay her fees, and Haris-Chandra, not knowing her in the darkness, turned her away. Fortunately the sun rose; mutual recognition followed; the victims of promiscuous largesse were at once remarried, and Vishnu intervened to restore the son to life. Tatu No. 11 shows Haris-Chandra watching the burning-ground by moonlight; the wavy line is the Ganges; the dots are the trees on the other side; the strokes on either side of the king are the logs of wood,which he is guarding. In No. 12 we see the sun rising, its first ray marked with a sort of fork, and the meeting of the king and queen.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “throughout the Jeypore country proper, the Dombus (and some Ghāsis) are by far the most troublesome class. Their favourite crime is cattle-theft for the sake of the skins, but, in 1902, a Dombu gang in Naurangpūr went so far as to levy blackmail over a large extent of country, and defy for some months all attempts at capture. The loss of their cattle exasperates the other hill folk to the last degree, and, in 1899, the Naiks (headmen) of sixteen villages in the north of Jeypore tāluk headed an organized attack on the houses of the Dombus, which, in the most deliberate manner, they razed to the ground in some fifteen villages. The Dombus had fortunately got scent of what was coming, and made themselves scarce, and no bloodshed occurred. In the next year, some of the Naiks of the Rāmagiri side of Jeypore tāluk sent round a jack branch, a well-recognised form of the fiery cross, summoning villagers other than Dombus to assemble at a fixed time and place, but this was luckily intercepted by the police. The Agent afterwards discussed the whole question with the chief Naiks of Jeypore and South Naurangpūr. Theyhad no opinion of the deterrent effects of mere imprisonment on the Dombus. ‘You fatten them, and send them back,’ they said, and suggested that a far better plan would be to cut off their right hands. [It is noted, in the Vizagapatam Manual, 1869, that in cases of murder, the Rājah of Jeypore generally had the man’s hands, nose, and ears cut off, but, after all that, he seldom escaped the deceased’s relatives.] They eventually proposed a plan of checking the cattle-thefts, which is now being followed in much of that country. The Bāranaiks, or heads of groups of villages, were each given brands with distinctive letters and numbers, and required to brand the skins of all animals which had died a natural death or been honestly killed; and the possession by Dombus, skin merchants, or others, of unbranded skins is now considered a suspicious circumstance, the burden of explaining which lies upon the possessor. Unless this, or some other way of checking the Dombus’ depredations proves successful, serious danger exists that the rest of the people will take the matter into their own hands and, as the Dombus in the Agency number over 50,000, this would mean real trouble.” It is further recorded57that the Paidis (Paidi Mālas), who often commit dacoities on the roads, “are connected with the Dombus of the Rāyagada and Gunupur tāluks, who are even worse. These people dacoit houses at night in armed gangs of fifty or more, with their faces blacked to prevent recognition. Terrifying the villagers into staying quiet in their huts, they force their way into the house of some wealthy person (for choice the local Sondi, liquor-seller and sowcar,58usually the only man worth looting in an agency village, and a shark who gets little pity from hisneighbours when forced to disgorge), tie up the men, rape the women, and go off with everything of value. Their favourite method of extracting information regarding concealed property is to sprinkle the houseowner with boiling oil.”Dommara.—The Dommaras are a tribe of tumblers, athletes, and mountebanks, some of whom wander about the country, while others have settled down as agricultural labourers, or make combs out of the wood ofElæodendron glaucum,Ixora parviflora,Pavetta indica,Ficus bengalensis, etc., which they sell to wholesale merchants. They are, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,59“a nomad class of acrobats, who, in many respects, recall the gipsies to mind, and raise the suggestion that their name may possibly be connected with the Dōms of Northern India. They speak Telugu, Marāthi, and Hindustani, but not generally Tamil. They are skilful jugglers, and both men and women are very clever tumblers and tight-rope dancers, exhibiting their feats as they travel about the country. Some of them sell date mats and baskets, some trade in pigs, while others, settled in villages, cultivate lands. In social position they rank just above the Pariahs and Mādigas. They profess to be Vaishnavites [and Saivites]. Infant marriage is not practiced. Widow remarriage is freely allowed, and polygamy is common. Their marriage tie is very loose, and their women often practice prostitution. They are a predatory class, great drunkards, and of most dissolute habits. The dead are generally buried, and [on the day of the final death ceremonies] cooked rice is thrown out to be eaten by crows. In the matter of food, they eat all sorts of animals, including pigs, cats, andcrows.” When a friend was engaged in making experiments in connection with snake venom, some Dommaras asked for permission to unbury the corpses of snakes and mungooses for the purpose of food.Ārē Dommara acrobat.Ārē Dommara acrobat.The Dommaras are, in the Mysore Census Report, 1901, summed up as being buffoons, tumblers, acrobats, and snakecharmers, who travel from place to place, and earn a precarious living by their exhibitions. In the Madras Census Report, 1901, Domban, Kalaikūttādi (pole-dancer), and Ārya Kūttādi, are given as synonyms of Dommara. The Kūttādi are summed up, in the Tanjore Manual, as vagabond dancers, actors, pantomimists, and marionette exhibitors, who hold a very low position in the social scale, and always perform in public streets and bazaars.By Mr. F. S. Mullaly60the Dommaras are divided into Reddi or Kāpu (i.e., cultivators) and Āray (Marātha). “The women,” he writes, “are proficient in making combs of horn and wood, and implements used by weavers. These they hawk about from place to place, to supplement the profits they derive from their exhibitions of gymnastic feats. In addition to performing conjuring tricks, rope-dancing and the like, the Dommaras hunt, fish, make mats, and rear donkeys and pigs. The head of the tribe is called the Mutli Guru. He is their high priest, and exercises supreme jurisdiction over them both in spiritual and temporal matters. His head-quarters is Chitvēl in the Cuddapah district. The legend regarding the office of the Mutli Guru is as follows. At Chitvēl, or as it was then known Mutli, there once lived a king, who called together a gathering of all the gymnasts among his subjects. Several classes were represented.Pōlērigādu, a Reddi Dommara, so pleased the king that he was presented with a ring, and a royal edict was passed that the wearer of the ring and his descendants should be the head of the Dommara class. The ring then given is said to be the same that is now worn by the head of the tribe at Chitvēl, which bears an inscription in Telugu declaring that the wearer is the high-priest or guru of all the Dommaras. The office is hereditary. The dwellings of the Dommaras are somewhat similar to those of the Koravars and Joghis, made of palmyra leaves plaited into mats with seven strands. These huts, or gudisays, are located on the outskirts of villages, and carried on the backs of donkeys when on the march. Stolen cloths, unless of value, are not as a rule sold, but concealed in the packs of their donkeys, and after a time worn. The Dommaras are addicted to dacoity, robbery, burglary, and thefts. The instrument used by them is unlike those used by other criminal classes: it is of iron, about a foot long, and with a chisel-shaped point. As cattle and sheep lifters they are expert, and they have their regular receivers at most of the cattle fairs throughout the Presidency.”It is noted, in the Nellore Manual, that the Dommaras “are stated by the Nellore Tahsildar to possess mirāsi rights in some villages; that I take to mean that there is, in some villages, a customary contribution for tumblers and mendicants, which, according to Wilson, was made in Mysore the pretext for a tax named Dombar-lingada-vira-kaniki. This tax, under the name Dombar tafrik, was levied in Venkatagiri in 1801.” In the Madura district, Dommaras are found in some villages formerly owned by zamindars, and they call themselves children of the zamindars, by whom they were probably patronised.Being a criminal class, the Dommaras have a thief’s language of their own, of which the following are examples:—Bidam vadu, Dommara.Poothi, policeman.Marigam, pig.Goparam, seven.Dāsa-masa, prostitute.Kopparam, salt.Kaljodu, goldsmith.The Dommaras are said to receive into their community children of other castes, and women of doubtful morals, and to practice the custom of making Basavis (dedicated prostitutes).The Telugu Dommaras give as their gōtra Salava patchi, the name of a mythological bird. At times of marriage, they substitute a turmeric-dyed string consisting of 101 threads, called bondhu, for the golden tāli or bottu. The marriage ceremonies of the Ārē Dommaras are supervised by an old Basavi woman, and the golden marriage badge is tied round the bride’s neck by a Basavi.Ārē Dommara acrobat.Ārē Dommara acrobat.A Dommara, whom I interviewed at Coimbatore, carried a cotton bag containing a miscellaneous assortment of rubbish used in his capacity as medicine man and snake-charmer, which included a collection of spurious jackal horns (nari kompu), the hairs round which were stained with turmeric. To prove the genuineness thereof, he showed me not only the horn, but also the feet with nails complete, as evidence that the horns were not made from the nails. Being charged with manufacturing the horns, he swore, by placing his hand on the head of a child who accompanied him, that he was not deceiving me. The largest of the horns in his bag, he gravely informed me, was from a jackal which he dug out of its hole on the last new moon night. The possessors of such horns, he assured me, do not go out with thepack, and rarely leave their holes except to feed on dew, field rats, etc. These spurious horns are regarded as a talisman, and it is believed that he who owns one can command the realisation of every wish. (SeeKuruvikkāran.) An iron ring, which the Dommara was wearing on his wrist, was used as a cure for hernia, being heated and applied as a branding agent over the inguinal region. Lamp oil is then rubbed over the burn, and a secret medicine, mixed with fowl’s egg, administered. The ring was, he said, an ancestral heir-loom, and as such highly prized. To cure rheumatism in the big joints, he resorted to an ingenious form of dry cupping. A small incision is made with a piece of broken glass over the affected part, and the skin damped with water. The distal end of a cow’s horn, of which the tip has been removed, and plugged with wax, does duty for the cup. A hole is pierced through the wax with an iron needle, and, the horn being placed over the seat of disease, the air is withdrawn from it by suction with the mouth, and the hole in the wax stopped up. As the air is removed from the cavity of the horn, the skin rises up within it. To remove the horn, it is only necessary to readmit air by once more boring a hole through the wax. In a bad case, as many as three horns may be applied to the affected part. The Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford possesses dry-cupping apparatus, made of cow horn, from Mirzapur in Northern India and from Natal, and of antelope horn from an unrecorded locality in India. In cases of scorpion sting the Dommara rubbed up patent boluses with human milk or milk of the milk-hedge plant (Euphorbia Tirucalli), and applied them to the part. For chest pains he prescribed red ochre, and for infantile diseases myrabolam (Terminalia) fruits mixed with water. In cases ofsnake-bite, a black stone, said to be made of various drugs mixed together, and burnt, is placed over the seat of the bite, and will, it was stated, drop off of its own accord as soon as it has absorbed all the poison. It is then put into milk or water to extract the poison, and the fluid is thrown away as being dangerous to life if swallowed. As a remedy for the bite of a mad dog, a plant, which is kept a secret, is mixed with the milk of a white goat, pepper, garlic, and other ingredients, and administered internally. A single dose is said to effect a cure.At Tarikēri in Mysore, a wandering troupe of Ārē (Marātha) Dommaras performed before me. The women were decorated with jewels and flowers, and carried bells on their ankles. The men had a row of bells attached all round the lower edge of their short drawers. Before the performance commenced, a Pillayar (Ganēsa) was made with cowdung, and saluted. The entertainment took place in the open air amid the beating of drums, whistling, singing, and dialogue. The jests and antics of the equivalent of the circus clown were a source of much joy to the throng of villagers who collected to witness the tamāsha (spectacle). One of the principal performers, in the waits between his turns, played the drum, or took a suck at a hooka (tobacco pipe) which was passed round among the members of the troupe. The entertainment, in which both men and women took part, consisted of various acrobatic feats, turning summersaults and catherine wheels, stilt-walking, and clever feats on the tight rope. Finally a man, climbing up a lofty bamboo pole, spun himself rapidly round and round on the top of it by means of a socket in an iron plate tied to his loin cloth, into which a spike in the pole fitted.Dondia.—A title of Gaudo.Donga Dāsari.—Dāsari (servant of the god), Mr. Francis writes,61“in the strict sense of the word, is a religious mendicant of the Vaishnavite sect, who has formally devoted himself to an existence as such, and been formally included in the mendicant brotherhood by being branded on the shoulders with Vaishnavite symbols.” Far different are the Donga, or thief Dāsaris, who receive their name from the fact that “the men and women disguise themselves as Dāsaris, with perpendicular Vaishnava marks on their foreheads, and, carrying a lamp (Garuda kambum), a gong of bell-metal, a small drum called jagata, and a tuft of peacock feathers, go begging in the villages, and are at times treated with the sumptuous meals, including cakes offered to them as the disciples of Venkatēsvarlu.62”In an interesting article on the Donga Dāsaris, Mr. S. M. Natesa Sastri writes as follows.63“Quite opposed to the gudi (temple) Dāsaris are Donga Dāsaris. They are the most dreaded of the criminal classes in the Bellary district. In the early years of their settlement in Bellary, these Donga Dāsaris were said to have practiced kidnapping boys and girls of other castes to strengthen their number, and even now, as the practice stands, any person can become a Donga Dāsari though very few would like to become one. But, for all that, the chief castes who furnished members to this brotherhood of robbery were the scum of the Lingayats and the Kabbēras. Of course, none of the respectable members of these castes would join them, and only those who were excommunicated found a ready home among theseDonga Dāsaris. Sometimes Muhammadan budmāshes (bad-māsh, evil means of livelihood) and the worst characters from other castes, also become Donga Dāsaris. The way an alien is made a Donga Dāsari is as follows. The regular Donga Dāsaris take the party who wants to enter their brotherhood to the side of a river, make him bathe in oil, give him a new cloth, hold a council, and give a feast. They burn a twig of the sami (Prosopis spicigera) or margosa (Melia Azadirachta) tree, and slightly burn the tongue of the party who has joined them. This is the way of purification and acceptance of every new member, who, soon after the tongue-burning ceremony, is given a seat in the general company, and made to partake of the common feast. The Donga Dāsaris talk both Telugu and Kanarese. They have only two bedagas or family names, called Sunna Akki (thin rice) and Ghantelavāru (men of the bell). As the latter is a family name of the Kabbēras, it is an evidence that members of the latter community have joined the Donga Dāsaris. Even now Donga Dāsaris intermarry with Kabbēras,i.e., they accept any girl from a Kabbēra family in marriage to one of their sons, but do not give one of their daughters in marriage to a Kabbēra boy. Hanumān is their chief god. Venkatēsa, an incarnation of Vishnu, is also worshipped by many. But, in every one of their villages, they have a temple dedicated to their village goddess Huligavva or Ellamma, and it is only before these goddesses that they sacrifice sheep or fowls. Vows are undertaken for these village goddesses when children fall ill. In addition to this, these Donga Dāsaris are notorious for taking vows before starting on a thieving expedition, and the way these ceremonies are gone through is as follows. The gang, before starting on athieving expedition, proceed to a jungle near their village in the early part of the night, worship their favourite goddesses Huligavva or Ellamma, and sacrifice a sheep or fowl before her. They place one of their turbans on the head of the sheep or fowl that was sacrificed, as soon as the head falls on the ground. If the turban turns to the right, it is considered a good sign, the goddess having permitted them to proceed on the expedition; if to the left, they return home that night. Hanumān is also consulted in such expeditions, and the way in which it is done is as follows. They go to a Hanumān temple which is near their village, and, after worshipping him, garland him with a wreath of flowers. The garland hangs on both sides of the neck. If any flowers on the right side drop down first, it is considered as a permission granted by the god to start on plundering expeditions, and, conversely, these expeditions are never undertaken if any flowers happen to drop from the left side first. The Donga Dāsaris start on their thieving raids with their whole family, wife and children following. They are the great experts in house-breaking and theft, and children are taught thieving by their mothers when they are five or six years old. The mother takes her boy or girl to the nearest market, and shows the child some cloth or vessel, and asks it to bring it away. When it fails, it is thrashed, and, when stroke upon stroke falls upon its back, the only reply it is taught to give is that it knows nothing. This is considered to be the reply which the child, when it grows up to be a man or woman, has to give to the police authorities when it is caught in some crime and thrashed by them to confess. Whenever the Donga Dāsaris are caught by the police, they give false names and false castes. They have a cipher language among themselves. The DongaDāsari woman is very loose, but, if she go astray with a Brāhman, Lingayat, Kabbēra, Kuruba, Upparava, or Rājput, her tongue is burnt, and she is taken back into the community. Widow remarriage freely prevails. They avoid eating beef and pork, but have no objection to other kinds of flesh.”Donga Oddē.—The name for Oddēs who practice thieving as a profession.Dongayato.—A sub-division of Gaudo.Dongrudiya.—A sub-division of Māli.Dora.—Dora, meaning lord, has been returned as the title of numerous classes, which include Bōya, Ekāri, Jātāpu, Konda Dora, Mutrācha, Patra, Telaga, Velama, and Yānāti. The hill Kois or Koyis of the Godāvari district are known as Koi Dora or Doralu (lords). I am told that, in some parts of the Telugu country, if one hears a native referred to as Dora, he will generally turn out to be a Velama; and that there is the following gradation in the social scale:—Velama Dora = Velama Esquire.Kamma Vāru = Mr. Kamma.Kapu = Plain Kāpu, without an honorific suffix.In Southern India, Dorai or Durai (Master) is the equivalent of the northern Sāhib, and Dorasāni (Mistress) of Memsāhib.It is noted by Sir A. J. Arbuthnot64that “the appellation by which Sir Thomas Munro was most commonly known in the Ceded districts was that of Colonel Dora. And to this day it is considered a sufficient answer to enquiries regarding the reason for any Revenue Rule, that it was laid down by the Colonel Dora.”Dorabidda, or children of chiefs, is the name by which Bōyas, who claim to be descended from Poligars (feudal chiefs) call themselves.Drāvida.—A sub-division of Kamsala. South Indian Brāhmans are called Drāvidas.Dūbaduba.—Recorded, at times of census, as an Oriya form of Budubudukala.Duddu(money).—An exogamous sept of Māla.Dūdēkula.—The Dūdēkulas are described by Mr. H. A. Stuart65as “Muhammadans who have taken to the trade of cotton-cleaning (dūde, cotton; ekula, to clean). By the Tamils they are called Panjāri or Panjukotti, which have the same significance. Though Muhammadans, they have adopted or retained many of the customs of the Hindus around them, tying a tāli to the bride at marriage, being very ignorant of the Muhammadan religion, and even joining in Hindu worship as far as allowable. Circumcision is, however, invariable, and they are much given to the worship of Muhammadan saints. In dress they resemble the Hindus, and often shave off the beard, but do not leave a single lock of hair upon the head, as most Hindus do. Over three hundred Hindus have returned their caste as either Dūdēkula or Panjāri, but these are probably members of other castes, who call themselves Dūdēkula as they are engaged in cotton-cleaning.”The Dūdēkulas are described by Mr. W. Francis66as “a Muhammadan caste of cotton-cleaners, and rope and tape-makers. They are either converts to Islām, or the progeny of unions between Musalmans and the women of the country. Consequently they generally speak the Dravidian languages—either Canarese or Telugu—butsome of them speak Hindustāni also. Their customs are a mixture of those of the Musalmans and the Hindus. Inheritance is apparently according to Muhammadan law. They pray in mosques, and circumcise their boys, and yet some of them observe the Hindu festivals. They worship their tools at Bakrid and not at the Dasara; they raise the azān or Muhammadan call to prayers at sunset, and they pray at the tombs of Musalman saints.” In the Vizagapatam district, the Dūdēkulas are described as beating cotton, and blowing horns.For the following note on the Dūdēkulas of the Ceded Districts, I am indebted to Mr. Haji Khaja Hussain. They claim Bava Faqrud-dīn Pīr of Penukonda in the Anantapur district as their patron saint. Large numbers of Muhammadans, including Dūdēkulas, collect at the annual festival (mēla) at his shrine, and offer their homage in the shape of a fatiha. This, meaning opener, is the name of the first chapter of the Korān, which is repeated when prayers are offered for the souls of the departed. For this ceremony a pilau, made of flesh, rice and ghī (clarified butter) is prepared, and the Khāzi repeats the chapter, and offers the food to the soul of the deceased saint or relation.The story of Faqrud-dīn Pīr is as follows. He was born in A.H. 564 (about A.D. 1122), and was King of Seistan in Persia. One day, while he was administering justice, a merchant brought some horses before him for sale. His attention was diverted, and he became for a time absorbed in contemplation of the beauty of one of the horses. Awakening from his reverie, he blamed himself for allowing his thoughts to wander when he was engaged in the most sacred of his duties as a king. He summoned a meeting of all the learned moulvis in his kingdom, and enquired of them what was the penaltyfor his conduct. They unanimously decreed that he should abdicate. Accordingly he placed his brother on the throne, and, becoming a dervish, came to India, and wandered about in the jungles. Eventually he arrived at Trichinopoly, and there met the celebrated saint Tabri-Ālam, whose disciple he became. After his admission into holy orders, he was told to travel about, and plant his miswāk wherever he halted, and regard the place where it sprouted as his permanent residence. The miswāk, or tooth-brush, is a piece of the root of the pīlū tree (Salvadora persica), which is used by Muhammadans, and especially Fakirs, for cleaning the teeth. When Bava Faqrud-dīn arrived at Penukonda hill, he, as usual, planted the miswāk, which sprouted. He accordingly decided to make this spot his permanent abode. But there was close by an important Hindu temple, and the idea of a Muhammadan settling close to it enraged the Hindus, who asked him to leave. He not only refused to do so, but allowed his disciples, of whom a number had collected, to slaughter a sacred bull belonging to the temple. The Hindus accordingly decided to kill Faqrud-dīn and his disciples. The Rāja collected an armed force, and demanded the restoration of the bull. Faqrud-dīn ordered one of his disciples to bring before him the skin, head, feet and tail of the animal, which had been preserved. Striking the skin with his staff, he exclaimed “Rise, Oh! bull, at the command of God.” The animal immediately rose in a complete state of restoration, and would not leave the presence of his preserver. Alarmed at this miracle, the Hindus brandished their swords and spears, and were about to fall on the Muhammadans, when a dust-storm arose and blinded them. In their confusion, they began to slay each other, and left the spot in dismay. TheRāja then resolved to kill the Muhammadans by poisoning them. He prepared some cakes mixed with poison, and sent them to Faqrud-dīn for distribution among his disciples. The saint, though he knew that the cakes were poisoned, partook thereof of himself, as also did his disciples, without any evil effect. A few days afterwards, the Rāja was attacked with colic, and his case was given up by the court physicians as hopeless. As a last resort, he was taken before Faqrud-dīn, who offered him one of the poisoned cakes, which cured him. Falling at his feet, the Rāja begged for pardon, and offered the village of Penukonda to Faqrud-dīn as a jaghīr (annuity). This offer was declined, and the saint asked that the temple should be converted into a mosque. The Rāja granted this request, and it is said that large numbers of Hindus embraced the Muhammadan religion, and were the ancestors of the Dūdēkulas.The Dūdēkulas, like the Hindus, like to possess some visible symbol for worship, and they enrol great personages who have died among the number of those at whose graves they worship. So essential is this grave worship that, if a place is without one, a grave is erected in the name of some saint. Such a thing has happened in recent times in Banganapalle. A Fakir, named Allā Bakhsh, died at Kurnool. A Dūdēkula of the Banganapalle State visited his grave, took away a lump of earth from the ground near it, and buried it in a village ten miles from Banganapalle. A shrine was erected over it in the name of the saint, and has become very famous for the miracles which are performed at it. An annual festival is held, which is attended by large numbers of Muhammadans and Dūdēkulas.Some Dūdēkulas have names which, though at first sight they seem to be Hindu, are really Muhammadan.For example, Kambannah is a corruption of Kamal Sahib, and Sakali, which in Telugu means a washerman, seems to be an altered form of Sheik Āli. Though Dūdēkulas say that they are Muhammadans of the Sheik sect, the name Sheik is only occasionally used as a prefix,e.g., Sheik Hussain or Sheik Āli. Names of males are Hussain Sa, Fakir Sa, and Khāsim Sa. Sa is an abbreviated form of Sahib. One old Dūdēkula stated that the title Sahib was intended for pucka (genuine) Muhammadans, and that the Dūdēkulas could not lay claim to the title in its entirety. Instead of Sa, Bhai, meaning brother, is sometimes used as a suffix to the name,e.g., Ghudu Bhai. Ghudu, meaning ash-heap, is an opprobrious name given to children of those whose offspring have died young, in the hope of securing long life to them. The child is taken, immediately after birth, to an ash-heap, where some of the ashes are sprinkled over it. Some Dūdēkulas adopt the Hindu termination appa (father), anna (brother), or gadu,e.g., Pullanna, Nāganna, Yerkalappa, Hussaingadu, Hussainappa. Typical names of females are Roshammā, Jamalammā, and Madarammā. They have dropped the title Bibi or Bi, and adopted the Hindu title ammā (mother).The ceremony of naming a child is generally performed on the sixth day after its birth. The choice of a name is entrusted to an elderly female member of the family. In some cases, the name of a deceased ancestor who lived to an advanced age is taken. If a child dies prematurely, there is a superstitious prejudice against its name, which is avoided by the family. Very frequently a father and son, and sometimes two or three brothers, have the same name. In such a case prefixes are added to their names as a means of distinguishing them,e.g., Pedda (big), Nadpi (middle), Chinna (little). Sometimestwo names are assumed by an individual, one a Hindu name for every day use, the other Muhammadan for ceremonial occasions.The Dūdēkulas depend for the performance of their ceremonies largely on the Khāzi, by whom even the killing of a fowl for domestic purposes has to be carried out. The Dūdēkula, like other Muhammadans, is averse to taking animal life without due religious rites, and the zabh, or killing of an animal for food, is an important matter. One who is about to do so should first make vazu (ablution), by cleaning his teeth and washing his mouth, hands, face, forearms, head and feet. He should then face the west, and an assistant holds the animal to be slaughtered upside down, and facing west. Water is poured into its mouth, and the words Bismillā hi Allā hu Akbar uttered. The operator then cuts the throat, taking care that the jugular veins are divided. In remote villages, where a Khāzi is not available, the Dūdēkulas keep a sacrificial knife, which has been sanctified by the Khāzi repeating over it the same words from the Korān as are used when an animal is slaughtered.The first words which a Muhammadan child should hear are those of the azān, or call to prayer, which are uttered in its ear immediately after birth. This ceremony is observed by those Dūdēkulas who live in towns or big villages, or can afford the services of a Khāzi. It is noted by Mr. Francis that the Dūdēkulas raise the azān at sunset. A few, who have been through a course of religious instruction at a Madrasa (school), may be able to do this. A Muhammadan is supposed to raise the azān five times daily, viz., before sunrise, between noon and 3P.M., between 4 and 6P.M., at sunset, and between 8P.M.and midnight.At the naming of an infant on the sixth day, the Dūdēkulas do not, like other Muhammadans, perform the aguigā ceremony, which consists of shaving the child’s head, and sacrificing a he-goat. Children are circumcised before the tenth year. On such occasions the Muhammadans generally invite their friends, and distribute sweets and pān-supāri (betel leaf and areca nuts). The Dūdēkulas simply send for a barber, Hindu or Muhammadan, who performs the operation in the presence of a Khāzi, if one happens to be available. When a girl reaches puberty, the Dūdēkulas invite their friends to a feast. Other Muhammadans, on the contrary, keep the fact a secret.At the betrothal ceremony, when sweets and pān-supāri are taken by the future bridegroom and his party to the house of the girl whom he seeks in marriage, the female members of both families, and the girl herself, are present. This fact shows the absence of the Muhammadan gōsha system among Dūdēkulas. A Muhammadan wedding lasts over five or six days, whereas the ceremonies are, among the Dūdēkulas, completed within twenty-four hours. On the night preceding the nikka day, a pilau is prepared, and a feast is held at the bridegroom’s house. On the following morning, when it is still dark, the bridegroom, accompanied by his relations, starts on horseback in procession, with beating of drums and letting off of fireworks. The procession arrives at the bride’s house before sunrise. The Khāzi is sent for, and the mahr is settled. This is a nominal gift settled on the wife before marriage by the bridegroom. On the death of a husband, a widow has priority of claim on his property to the promised amount of the mahr. Two male witnesses are sent to the bride, to obtain her assent to the union, and to the amount ofthe mahr. The Khāzi, being an orthodox Muhammadan, treats the Dūdēkula bride as strictly gōsha for the time being, and, therefore, selects two of her near relatives as witnesses. The lutcha (marriage badge), consisting of a single or double string of beads, is brought in a cup filled with sandal paste.The Khāzi chants the marriage service, and sends the lutcha in to the bride with his blessing. It is tied round her neck by the female relations of the bridegroom, and the marriage rites are over.The usual Muhammadan form of greeting among Muhammadans is the familiar “Peace be with you.” “And with you be peace.” When a Dūdēkula greets a Muhammadan, he simply bows, and, with members of his own community, uses a Telugu form of salutation,e.g., nīku mokkutāmu.The Dūdēkulas, male and female, dress exactly like Hindus, but, as a rule, the men do not shave their beard.Disputes, and social questions affecting the community, are settled by a Khāzi.With the increase in cotton mills, and the decline of the indigenous hand-weaving industry, the demand for cotton-cleaning labour has diminished, and some Dūdēkulas have, of necessity, taken to agriculture. Land-owners are very scarce among them, but some are abkāri (liquor) contractors, village schoolmasters, and quack doctors. In the Ceded Districts, the cotton-cleaning industry is solely confined to the Dūdēkulas.The synonyms of Dūdēkula, Ladaf and Nūrbāsh, recorded at times of census, are corruptions of Nad-dāf (a cotton dresser) and Nūrbāf (weaving).Dūdi.—A title of Kurumos, who officiate as priests at the temples of village deities.Dūdi(cotton)Balija.—A name for traders in cotton in the Telugu country, and an occupational sub-division of Kōmati.Durga(fort).—A gōtra of Kurni.Dūtan.—Recorded, in the Travancore Census Report, as a synonym of Āri.Dyavana(tortoise).—An exogamous sept of Mogēr.
cm.Padma Sālē159.9Sūkūn Sālē160.3Togata160.5Suka Sālē161.1Dēvēndra.—A name assumed by some Pallans, who claim to be descended from the king of the gods (dēvas).Dhabba(split bamboo).—Dhabba or Dhabbai is the name of a sub-division of Koravas, who split bamboos, and make various articles therefrom.Dhakkado.—A small mixed class of Oriya cultivators, concerning whom there is a proverb that a Dhakkado does not know his father. They are described, in the Census Report, 1891, as “a caste of cultivators found in the Jeypore agency tracts. They are said to be the offspring of a Brāhman and a Sūdra girl, and, though living on the hills, they are not an uncivilised hill tribe. Some prepare and sell the sacred thread, others are confectioners. They wear the sacred thread, and do not drink water from the hands of any except Brāhmans. Girls are married before puberty, and widow marriage is practiced. They are flesh-eaters, and their dead are usually buried.”In a note on the Dhakkados, Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao writes that “the illegitimate descendant of a Brāhman and a hill woman of the non-polluting castes is said to be known as a Dhakkado. The Dhakkados assume Brāhmanical names, but, as regards marriages, funerals, etc., follow the customs of their mother’s caste. Her caste people intermarry with her children. ADhakkado usually follows the occupation of his mother’s caste. Thus one whose mother is a Kevuto follows the calling of fishing or plying boats on rivers, one whose mother is a Bhumia is an agriculturist, and so on.”Dhakūr.—Stated, in the Manual of the Vizagapatam district, to be illegitimate children of Brāhmans, who wear the paieta (sacred thread).Dhanapāla.—A sub-division of Gollas, who guard treasure while it is in transit.Dhangar.—Dhangar, or Donigar, is recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as a Marāthi caste of shepherds and cattle-breeders. I gather, from a note45on the Dhangars of the Kanara district in the Bombay Presidency, that “the word Dhangar is generally derived from the Sanskrit dhenu, a cow. Their home speech is Marāthi, but they can speak Kanarese. They keep a special breed of cows and buffaloes, known as Dhangar mhasis and Dhangar gāis which are the largest cattle in Kanara. Many of Shivāji’s infantry were Sātāra Dhangars.”Dhaniāla(coriander).—An exogamous sept of Kamma. Dhaniāla Jāti, or coriander caste, is an opprobrious name applied to Kōmatis, indicating that, in business transactions, they must be crushed as coriander fruits are crushed before the seed is sown.Dhāre.—An exogamous sept of Kuruba. In the Canara country, the essential and binding part of the marriage ceremony is called dhāre (seeBant).Dharmarāja.—An exogamous sept of the Irulas of North Arcot. Dharmarāja was the eldest of the five Pāndavas, the heroes of the Mahābhāratha.Dhippo(light).—An exogamous sept of Bhondāri. The members thereof may not blow out lights, or extinguish them in any other way. They will not light lamps without being madi,i.e., wearing silk cloths, or cloths washed and dried after bathing.Dhōbi.—A name used for washerman by Anglo-Indians all over India. The word is said to be derived from dhōha, Sanskrit, dhāv, to wash. A whitish grey sandy efflorescence, found in many places, from which, by boiling and the addition of quicklime, an alkali of considerable strength is obtained, is called Dhōbi’s earth.46“The expression dhobie itch,” Manson writes,47“although applied to any itching ringworm-like affection of any part of the skin, most commonly refers to some form of epiphytic disease of the crutch or axilla (armpit).” The disease is very generally supposed to be communicated by clothes from the wash, but Manson is of opinion that the belief that it is contracted from clothes which have been contaminated by the washerman is probably not very well founded.Dhōbi is the name, by which the washerman caste of the Oriyas is known. “They are said,” Mr. Francis writes,48“to have come originally from Orissa. Girls are generally married before maturity, and, if this is not possible, they have to be married to a sword or a tree, before they can be wedded to a man. Their ordinary marriage ceremonies are as follows. The bridal pair bathe in water brought from seven different houses. The bridegroom puts a bangle on the bride’s arm (this is the binding part of the ceremony); the left and right wrists of the bride and bridegroom are tied together; betel leaf and nut are tied in a corner of the bride’s cloth, and amyrabolam (Terminaliafruit) in that of the bridegroom; and finally the people present in the pandal (booth) throw rice and saffron (turmeric) over them. Widows and divorced women may marry again. They are Vaishnavites, but some of them also worship Kāli or Durga. They employ Bairāgis, and occasionally Brāhmans, as their priests. They burn their dead, and perform srāddha (annual memorial ceremony). Their titles are Chetti (or Mahā Chetti) and Bēhara.” The custom of the bridal pair bathing in water from seven different houses obtains among many Oriya castes, including Brāhmans. It is known by the name of pāni-tula. The water is brought by married girls, who have not reached puberty, on the night preceding the wedding day, and the bride and bridegroom wash in it before dawn. This bath is called koili pāni snāno, or cuckoo water-bath. The koil is the Indian koel or cuckoo (Eudynamis honorata), whose crescendo cry ku-il, ku-il, is trying to the nerves during the hot season.The following proverbs49relating to washermen may be quoted:—Get a new washerman, and an old barber.The washerman knows the defects of the village (i.e., he learns a good deal about the private affairs of the various families, when receiving and delivering the clothes).When a washerman gets sick, his sickness must leave him at the stone. The stone referred to is the large stone, on which the washerman cleans cloths, and the proverb denotes that, however sick a washerman may be, his work must be done.Dhoddi.—Dhoddi, meaning a court or back-yard, cattle-pen, or sheep-fold, has been recorded as an exogamous sept of Dēvānga, Koppala Velama, Kama Sālē, Māla, and Yānādi.Dhoddiyan.—A name given by Tamilians to Jōgis.Dhollo.—Dhollo is recorded in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as the same as Doluva. A correspondent informs me that Dhollo is said to be different from Doluva.Dhōma(gnat or mosquito).—An exogamous sept of Māla.Dhondapu(Cephalandra indica).—An exogamous sept of Dēvānga. The fruit is one of the commonest of native vegetables, and cooked in curries.Dhōni(boat).—An exogamous sept of Mīla and Oruganti Kāpu. In a paper on the native vessels of South India by Mr. Edge, published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, the dhōni is described as “a vessel of ark-like form, about 70 feet long, 20 feet broad, and 11 feet deep, with a flat bottom or keel part, which at the broadest place is 7 feet.“The whole equipment of these rude vessels, as well as their construction, is the most coarse and unseaworthy that I have ever seen.” The dhōni, with masts, is represented in the ancient lead and copper coinage of Southern India.Dhor.—In the Madras Census Report, 1901, a few (164) individuals were returned as “Dhēr, a low caste of Marāthi leather workers.” They were, I gather from the Bombay Gazetteer, Dhors or tanners who dwell in various parts of the Bombay Presidency, and whose home speech, names and surnames seem to show that they have come from the Marātha country.Dhūdala(calves).—An exogamous sept of Thūmati Golla.Dhudho(milk).—A sept of Omanaito.Dhuggāni(money).—An exogamous sept of Dēvānga.Dhūliya.—Dhūliya or Dūlia is a small class of Oriya cultivators, some of whom wear the sacred thread, and employ Boishnobs as their priests. Marriage before puberty is not compulsory, and widows can remarry. They eat flesh. The dead are cremated.50The name is said to be derived from dhuli, dust, with which those who work in the fields are covered. Dhūliya also means carriers of dhulis (dhoolies), which are a form of palanquin.Didāvi.—A sub-division of Poroja.Digambara(space-clad or sky-clad,i.e., nude).—One of the two main divisions of the Jains. The Digambaras are said51to “regard absolute nudity as the indispensable sign of holiness, though the advance of civilisation has compelled them to depart from the practice of their theory.”Dīvar.—SeeDēva.Diyāsi.—An exogamous sept of Dandāsi. The members thereof show special reverence for the sun, and cloths, mokkutos (forehead chaplets), garlands, and other articles to be used by the bride and bridegroom at a wedding are placed outside the house, so that they may be exposed to it.Dolaiya.—A title of Doluva and Odia.Dolobēhara.—The name of headmen or their assistants among many Oriya castes. In some cases,e.g., among the Haddis, the name is used as a title by families, members of which are headmen.Doluva.—The Doluvas of Ganjam are, according to the Madras Census Report, 1891, “supposed to be the descendants of the old Rājahs by their concubines, and were employed as soldiers and attendants. The name issaid to be derived from the Sanskrit dola, meaning army.” The Doluvas claim to be descended from the Puri Rājahs by their concubines, and say that some of them were employed as sirdars and paiks under these Rājahs. They are said to have accompanied a certain Puri Rājah who came south to wage war, and to have settled in Ganjam. They are at the present day mainly engaged in agriculture, though some are traders, bricklayers, cart-drivers, etc. The caste seems to be divided into five sections, named Kondaiyito, Lenka, Rabba, Pottia, and Beharania, of which the first two are numerically the strongest and most widely distributed. Kondaiyito is said to be derived from kondo, an arrow, and to indicate warrior. The Kondaiyitos sometimes style themselves Rājah Doluvas, and claim superiority over the other sections. It is noted, in the Madras Census Report, 1891, that “Oriya Zamindars get wives from this sub-division, but the men of it cannot marry into the Zamindar’s families. They wear the sacred thread, and are writers.” In former days, the title writer was applied to the junior grade of Civil Servants of the East India Company. It is now used to denote a copying clerk in an office.Various titles occur among members of the caste,e.g., Bissoyi, Biswālo, Dolei, Jenna, Kottiya, Mahanti, Majhi, Nāhako, Porida, Rāvuto, Sāmulo, and Sāni.The ordinary caste council system, with a hereditary headman, seems to be absent among the Doluvas, and the affairs of the caste are settled by leading members thereof.The Doluvas are Paramarthos, following the Chaitanya form of Vaishnavism, and wearing a rosary of tulsi (Ocimum sanctum) beads. They further worship various Tākurānis (village deities), among which are Kālva, Bāgadēvi, Kotari, Mahēswari, and Manickēswari. Theyare in some places very particular regarding the performance of srādh (memorial ceremony), which is carried out annually in the following manner. On the night before the srādh day, a room is prepared for the reception of the soul of the deceased. This room is called pitru bharano (reception of the ancestor). The floor thereof is cleansed with cow-dung water, and a lamp fed with ghī (clarified butter) is placed on it by the side of a plank. On this plank a new cloth is laid for the reception of various articles for worship,e.g., sacred grass,Zizyphus jujubaleaves, flowers, etc. In front of the plank a brass vessel, containing water and a tooth brush ofAchyranthes asperaroot, is placed. The dead person’s son throws rice andZizyphusleaves into the air, and calls on the deceased to come and give a blessing on the following day. The room is then locked, and the lamp kept burning in it throughout the night. On the following day, all old pots are thrown away and, after a small space has been cleaned on the floor of the house, a pattern is drawn thereon with flour in the form of a square or oblong with twelve divisions. On each division a jak (Artocarpus integrifolia) leaf is placed, and on each leaf the son puts cooked rice and vegetables. A vessel containingAchyranthesroot, and a plank with a new cloth on it, are set by the side of the pattern. After worship has been performed and food offered, the cloth is presented to a Brāhman, and the various articles used in the ceremonial are thrown into water.Dōmb.—The name Dōmb or Dōmbo is said to be derived from the word dumba, meaning devil, in reference to the thieving propensities of the tribe. The Dōmbas, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,52“are a Dravidiancaste of weavers and menials, found in the hill tracts of Vizagapatam. This caste appears to be an offshoot of the Dōm caste of Bengal, Behār, and the North-Western Provinces. Like the Dōms, the Dōmbas are regarded with disgust, because they eat beef, pork, horse-flesh, rats, and the flesh of animals which have died a natural death, and both are considered to be Chandālas or Pariahs by the Bengālis and the Uriyas. The Dōmbs weave the cloths and blankets worn by the hill people, but, like the Pariahs of the plains, they are also labourers, scavengers, etc. Some of them are extensively engaged in trade, and they have, as a rule, more knowledge of the world than the ryots who despise them. They are great drunkards.” In the Census Report, 1871, it was noted that “in many villages, the Dōms carry on the occupation of weaving, but, in and around Jaipur, they are employed as horse-keepers, tom-tom beaters, scavengers, and in other menial duties. Notwithstanding their abject position in the social scale, some signs of progress may be detected amongst them. They are assuming the occupation, in many instances, of petty hucksters, eking out a livelihood by taking advantage of the small difference in rates between market and market.”“The Dōmbs,” Mr. F. Fawcett writes,53“are an outcast jungle people, who inhabit the forests on the high lands fifty to eighty or a hundred miles from the east coast, about Vizagapatam. Being outcast, they are never allowed to live within a village, but have their own little hamlet adjoining a village proper, inhabited by people of various superior castes. It is fair to say that the Dōmbs are akin to the Pānos of the adjoiningKhond country, a Pariah folk who live amongst the Khonds, and used to supply the human victims for the Meriah sacrifices. Indeed, the Khonds, who hold them in contemptuous inferiority, call them Dōmbas as a sort of alternative title to Pānos. The Paidis of the adjoining Savara or Saora country are also, doubtless, kinsmen of the Dōmbs. [The same man is said to be called Paidi by Telugus, Dōmbo by the Savaras, and Pāno by the Khonds. It is noted in the Census Report, 1881, that the Pāno quarters in Khond villages are called Dōmbo Sai.] In most respects their condition is a very poor one. Though they live in the best part of the Presidency for game, they know absolutely nothing of hunting, and cannot even handle a bow and arrow. They have, however, one respectable quality, industry, and are the weavers, traders, and money-lenders of the hills, being very useful as middlemen between the Khonds, Sauras, Gadabas, and other hill people on the one hand, and the traders of the plains on the other. I am informed, on good authority, that there are some Dōmbs who rise higher than this, but cannot say whether these are, or are not crosses with superior races. Most likely they are, for most of the Dōmbs are arrant thieves. It was this propensity for thieving, in fact, which had landed some hundreds of them in the jail at Vizagapatam when I visited that place, and gave me an opportunity of recording their measurements.” The averages of the more important of these measurements are as follows:—cm.Stature161.9Cephalic length18.8Cephalic breadth14.3Cephalic index75.6Nasal index86.5It is noted by the Missionary Gloyer54that the colour of the skin of the Dōmbs varies from very dark to yellow, and their height from that of an Aryan to the short stature of an aboriginal, and that there is a corresponding variation in facial type.For the following note on the Dōmbs, I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. They are the weavers, traders, musicians, beggars, and money-lenders of the hills. Some own cattle, and cultivate. The hill people in the interior are entirely dependent on them for their clothing. A few Dōmb families are generally found to each village. They act as middlemen between the hill people and the Kōmati traders. Their profits are said to be large, and their children are, in some places, found attending hill schools. As musicians, they play on the drum and pipe. They are the hereditary musicians of the Mahārāja of Jeypore. A Dōmb beggar, when engaged in his professional calling, goes about from door to door, playing on a little pipe. Their supposed powers over devils and witches result in their being consulted when troubles appear. Though the Dōmbs are regarded as a low and polluting class, they will not eat at the hands of Kōmatis, Bhondāris, or Ghāsis. Some Dōmbas have become converts to Christianity through missionary influence.In the Madras Census Report, 1891, the following sections of the Dōmbs are recorded:—Onomia, Odia, Māndiri, Mirgām, and Kohara. The sub-divisions, however, seem to be as follows:—Mirigāni, Kobbiriya, Odiya, Sōdabisiya, Māndiri, and Andiniya. There are also various septs, of which the following have been recorded among the Odiyas:—Bhāg (tiger), Bālu (bear),Nāg (cobra), Hanumān (the monkey god), Kochchipo (tortoise), Bengri (frog), Kukra (dog), Surya (sun), Matsya (fish), and Jaikonda (lizard). It is noted by Mr. Fawcett that “monkeys, frogs, and cobras are taboo, and also the sunāri tree (Ochna squarrosa). The big lizard, cobras, frogs, and the crabs which are found in the paddy fields, and are usually eaten by jungle people, may not be eaten.”When a girl reaches puberty, she remains outside the hut for five days, and then bathes at the nearest stream, and is presented with a new cloth. In honour of the event, drink is distributed among her relatives. Girls are usually married after puberty. A man can claim his paternal aunt’s daughter in marriage. When a proposal of marriage is to be made, the suitor carries some pots of liquor, usually worth two rupees, to the girl’s house, and deposits them in front of it. If her parents consent to the match, they take the pots inside, and drink some of the liquor. After some time has elapsed, more liquor, worth five rupees, is taken to the girl’s house. A reduction in the quantity of liquor is made when a man is proposing for the hand of his paternal aunt’s daughter, and, on the second occasion, the liquor will only be worth three rupees. A similar reduction is made in the jholla tonka, or bride price. On the wedding day, the bridegroom goes, accompanied by his relations, to the bride’s home, where, at the auspicious moment fixed by the Desāri, his father presents new cloths to himself and the bride, which they put on. They stand before the hut, and on each is placed a cloth with a myrabolam (Terminalia) seed, rice, and a few copper coins tied up in it. The bridegroom’s right little finger is linked with the left little finger of the bride, and they enter the hut. On the following day, the newlymarried couple repair to the home of the bridegroom. On the third day, they are bathed in turmeric water, a pig is killed, and a feast is held. On the ninth day, the knots in the cloths, containing the myrabolams, rice, and coins, are untied, and the marriage ceremonies are at an end. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and a younger brother usually marries the widow of his elder brother.It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “some of the Dōmbus of the Parvatipur Agency follow many of the customs of the low-country castes, including mēnarikam (marriage with the maternal uncle’s daughter), and say they are the same as the Paidis (or Paidi Mālas) of the plains adjoining, with whom they intermarry.”The corpses of the more prosperous Dōmbs are usually cremated. The wood of the sunāri tree and relli (Cassia fistula) may not be used for the pyre. The son or husband of a deceased person has his head, moustache, and armpits shaved on the tenth day.Dōmb women, and women of other tribes in the Jeypore Agency tracts, wear silver ear ornaments called nāgul, representing a cobra just about to strike with tongue protruded. Similar ornaments of gold, called nāga pōgulu (cobra-shaped earrings), are worn by women of some Telugu castes in the plains of Vizagapatam.The personal names of the Dōmbs are, as among other Oriya castes, often those of the day of the week on which the individual was born.Concerning the religion of the Dōmbs, Mr. Fawcett notes that “their chief god—probably an ancestral spirit—is called Kaluga. There is one in each village, in the headman’s house. The deity is represented by a pie piece (copper coin), placed in or over a new earthenpot smeared with rice and turmeric powder. During worship, a silk cloth, a new cloth, or a wet cloth may be worn, but one must not dress in leaves. Before the mangoes are eaten, the first-fruits are offered to the moon, at the full moon of the month Chitra.”“When,” Gloyer writes, “a house has to be built, the first thing is to select a favourable spot, to which few evil spirits (dūmas) resort. At this spot they put, in several places, three grains of rice arranged in such a way that the two lower grains support the upper one. To protect the grains, they pile up stones round them, and the whole is lightly covered with earth. When, after some time, they find on inspection that the upper grain has fallen off, the spot is regarded as unlucky, and must not be used. If the position of the grains remains unchanged, the omen is regarded as auspicious. They drive in the first post, which must have a certain length, say of five, seven, or nine ells, the ell being measured from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow. The post is covered on the top with rice straw, leaves, and shrubs, so that birds may not foul it, which would be regarded as an evil omen. [In Madras, a story is current, with reference to the statue of Sir Thomas Munro, that he seized upon all the rice depôts, and starved the people to death by selling rice in egg-shells at one shell for a rupee, and, to punish him, the Government erected the statue in an open place, so that the birds of the air might insult him by polluting his face.] In measuring the house, odd numbers play an important part. The number four (pura, or full number), however, forms the proper measurement, whereby they measure the size of the house, according to the pleasure of the builder. But now the Dissary (Dēsāri) decides whether the house shall be built on the nandi, dua, or tia system, nandisignifying one, dua two, and tia three. This number of ells must be added to the measurement of the house. Supposing that the length of the house is twelve ells, then it will be necessary to add one ell according to the nandi system, so that the length amounts to thirteen ells. The number four can only be used for stables.”“The Dūmas,” Gloyer continues, “are represented as souls of the deceased, which roam about without a home, so as to cause to mankind all possible harm. At the birth of a child, the Dūma must be invited in a friendly manner to provide the child with a soul, and protect it against evil. For this purpose, a fowl is killed on the ninth day, a bone (beinknochen) detached, and pressed in to the hand of the infant. The relations are seated in solemn silence, and utter the formula:—When grandfather, grandmother, father, or brother comes, throw away the bone, and we will truly believe it. No sooner does the sprawling and excited infant drop the bone, than the Dūmas are come, and boisterous glee prevails. The Dūmas occasionally give vent to their ghostly sounds, and cause no little consternation among the inmates of a house, who hide from fear. Cunning thieves know how to rob the superstitious by employing instruments with a subdued tone (dumpftönende), or by emitting deep sounds from the chest. The yearly sacrifice to a Dūma consists of a black fowl and strong brandy. If a member of a family falls ill, an extraordinary sacrifice has to be offered up. The Dūma is not regarded only as an evil spirit, but also as a tutelary deity. He protects one against the treacherous attacks of witches. A place is prepared for him in the door-hinge, or a fishing-net, wherein he lives, is placed over the door. The witches must count all the knots of the net, before they can enter. Devil worship is closely connected with that of theDūma. The devil’s priests, and in rare cases priestesses, effect communion between the people and the Dūmas by a sort of possession, which the spirit, entering into them, is said to give rise to. This condition, which is produced by intoxicating drink and the fumes of burning incense, gives rise to revolting cramp-like contortions, and muscular quiverings. In this state, they are wont to communicate what sacrifices the spirits require. On special occasions, they fall into a frenzied state, in which they cut their flesh with sharp instruments, or pass long, thin iron bars through the tongue and cheeks, during which operation no blood must flow. For this purpose, the instruments are rubbed all over with some blood-congealing material or sap. They also affect sitting on a sacred swing, armed with long iron nails. [Mr. G. F. Paddison informs me that he once saw a villager in the Vizagapatam district, sitting outside the house, while groans proceeded from within. He explained that he was ill, and his wife was swinging on nails with their points upwards, to cure him.] The devil called Jom Duto, or messenger of the going, is believed to be a one-eyed, limping, black individual, whose hair is twisted into a frightfully long horn, while one foot is very long, and the other resembles the hoof of a buffalo. He makes his appearance at the death-bed, in order to drag his victim to the realm of torture.”Children are supposed to be born without souls, and to be afterwards chosen as an abode by the soul of an ancestor. The coming of the ancestor is signalised by the child dropping a chicken bone which has been thrust into its hand, and much rejoicing follows among the assembled relations.55Mr. Paddison tells me that some Dōmbs are reputed to be able to pour blazing oil over their bodies, without suffering any hurt; and one man is said to have had a miraculous power of hardening his skin, so that any one could have a free shot at him, without hurting him. He further narrates that, at Sujanakōta in the Vizagapatam district, the Dōmbs, notwithstanding frequent warnings, put devils into two successive schoolmasters.Various tattoo devices, borne by the Dōmbs examined by Mr. Fawcett, are figured and described by him. “These patterns,” he writes, “were said to be, one and all, purely ornamental, and not in any way connected with totems, or tribal emblems.” Risley, however,56regards “four out of the twelve designs as pretty closely related to the religion and mythology of the tribe; two are totems and two have reference to the traditional avocations. Nos. 11 and 12 represent a classical scene in Dōm folk-lore, the story of King Haris-Chandra, who was so generous that he gave all he had to the poor and sold himself to a Dōm at Benares, who employed him to watch his cremation ground at night. While he was thus engaged, his wife, who had also been sold for charitable purposes, came to burn the body of her son. She had no money to pay her fees, and Haris-Chandra, not knowing her in the darkness, turned her away. Fortunately the sun rose; mutual recognition followed; the victims of promiscuous largesse were at once remarried, and Vishnu intervened to restore the son to life. Tatu No. 11 shows Haris-Chandra watching the burning-ground by moonlight; the wavy line is the Ganges; the dots are the trees on the other side; the strokes on either side of the king are the logs of wood,which he is guarding. In No. 12 we see the sun rising, its first ray marked with a sort of fork, and the meeting of the king and queen.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “throughout the Jeypore country proper, the Dombus (and some Ghāsis) are by far the most troublesome class. Their favourite crime is cattle-theft for the sake of the skins, but, in 1902, a Dombu gang in Naurangpūr went so far as to levy blackmail over a large extent of country, and defy for some months all attempts at capture. The loss of their cattle exasperates the other hill folk to the last degree, and, in 1899, the Naiks (headmen) of sixteen villages in the north of Jeypore tāluk headed an organized attack on the houses of the Dombus, which, in the most deliberate manner, they razed to the ground in some fifteen villages. The Dombus had fortunately got scent of what was coming, and made themselves scarce, and no bloodshed occurred. In the next year, some of the Naiks of the Rāmagiri side of Jeypore tāluk sent round a jack branch, a well-recognised form of the fiery cross, summoning villagers other than Dombus to assemble at a fixed time and place, but this was luckily intercepted by the police. The Agent afterwards discussed the whole question with the chief Naiks of Jeypore and South Naurangpūr. Theyhad no opinion of the deterrent effects of mere imprisonment on the Dombus. ‘You fatten them, and send them back,’ they said, and suggested that a far better plan would be to cut off their right hands. [It is noted, in the Vizagapatam Manual, 1869, that in cases of murder, the Rājah of Jeypore generally had the man’s hands, nose, and ears cut off, but, after all that, he seldom escaped the deceased’s relatives.] They eventually proposed a plan of checking the cattle-thefts, which is now being followed in much of that country. The Bāranaiks, or heads of groups of villages, were each given brands with distinctive letters and numbers, and required to brand the skins of all animals which had died a natural death or been honestly killed; and the possession by Dombus, skin merchants, or others, of unbranded skins is now considered a suspicious circumstance, the burden of explaining which lies upon the possessor. Unless this, or some other way of checking the Dombus’ depredations proves successful, serious danger exists that the rest of the people will take the matter into their own hands and, as the Dombus in the Agency number over 50,000, this would mean real trouble.” It is further recorded57that the Paidis (Paidi Mālas), who often commit dacoities on the roads, “are connected with the Dombus of the Rāyagada and Gunupur tāluks, who are even worse. These people dacoit houses at night in armed gangs of fifty or more, with their faces blacked to prevent recognition. Terrifying the villagers into staying quiet in their huts, they force their way into the house of some wealthy person (for choice the local Sondi, liquor-seller and sowcar,58usually the only man worth looting in an agency village, and a shark who gets little pity from hisneighbours when forced to disgorge), tie up the men, rape the women, and go off with everything of value. Their favourite method of extracting information regarding concealed property is to sprinkle the houseowner with boiling oil.”Dommara.—The Dommaras are a tribe of tumblers, athletes, and mountebanks, some of whom wander about the country, while others have settled down as agricultural labourers, or make combs out of the wood ofElæodendron glaucum,Ixora parviflora,Pavetta indica,Ficus bengalensis, etc., which they sell to wholesale merchants. They are, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,59“a nomad class of acrobats, who, in many respects, recall the gipsies to mind, and raise the suggestion that their name may possibly be connected with the Dōms of Northern India. They speak Telugu, Marāthi, and Hindustani, but not generally Tamil. They are skilful jugglers, and both men and women are very clever tumblers and tight-rope dancers, exhibiting their feats as they travel about the country. Some of them sell date mats and baskets, some trade in pigs, while others, settled in villages, cultivate lands. In social position they rank just above the Pariahs and Mādigas. They profess to be Vaishnavites [and Saivites]. Infant marriage is not practiced. Widow remarriage is freely allowed, and polygamy is common. Their marriage tie is very loose, and their women often practice prostitution. They are a predatory class, great drunkards, and of most dissolute habits. The dead are generally buried, and [on the day of the final death ceremonies] cooked rice is thrown out to be eaten by crows. In the matter of food, they eat all sorts of animals, including pigs, cats, andcrows.” When a friend was engaged in making experiments in connection with snake venom, some Dommaras asked for permission to unbury the corpses of snakes and mungooses for the purpose of food.Ārē Dommara acrobat.Ārē Dommara acrobat.The Dommaras are, in the Mysore Census Report, 1901, summed up as being buffoons, tumblers, acrobats, and snakecharmers, who travel from place to place, and earn a precarious living by their exhibitions. In the Madras Census Report, 1901, Domban, Kalaikūttādi (pole-dancer), and Ārya Kūttādi, are given as synonyms of Dommara. The Kūttādi are summed up, in the Tanjore Manual, as vagabond dancers, actors, pantomimists, and marionette exhibitors, who hold a very low position in the social scale, and always perform in public streets and bazaars.By Mr. F. S. Mullaly60the Dommaras are divided into Reddi or Kāpu (i.e., cultivators) and Āray (Marātha). “The women,” he writes, “are proficient in making combs of horn and wood, and implements used by weavers. These they hawk about from place to place, to supplement the profits they derive from their exhibitions of gymnastic feats. In addition to performing conjuring tricks, rope-dancing and the like, the Dommaras hunt, fish, make mats, and rear donkeys and pigs. The head of the tribe is called the Mutli Guru. He is their high priest, and exercises supreme jurisdiction over them both in spiritual and temporal matters. His head-quarters is Chitvēl in the Cuddapah district. The legend regarding the office of the Mutli Guru is as follows. At Chitvēl, or as it was then known Mutli, there once lived a king, who called together a gathering of all the gymnasts among his subjects. Several classes were represented.Pōlērigādu, a Reddi Dommara, so pleased the king that he was presented with a ring, and a royal edict was passed that the wearer of the ring and his descendants should be the head of the Dommara class. The ring then given is said to be the same that is now worn by the head of the tribe at Chitvēl, which bears an inscription in Telugu declaring that the wearer is the high-priest or guru of all the Dommaras. The office is hereditary. The dwellings of the Dommaras are somewhat similar to those of the Koravars and Joghis, made of palmyra leaves plaited into mats with seven strands. These huts, or gudisays, are located on the outskirts of villages, and carried on the backs of donkeys when on the march. Stolen cloths, unless of value, are not as a rule sold, but concealed in the packs of their donkeys, and after a time worn. The Dommaras are addicted to dacoity, robbery, burglary, and thefts. The instrument used by them is unlike those used by other criminal classes: it is of iron, about a foot long, and with a chisel-shaped point. As cattle and sheep lifters they are expert, and they have their regular receivers at most of the cattle fairs throughout the Presidency.”It is noted, in the Nellore Manual, that the Dommaras “are stated by the Nellore Tahsildar to possess mirāsi rights in some villages; that I take to mean that there is, in some villages, a customary contribution for tumblers and mendicants, which, according to Wilson, was made in Mysore the pretext for a tax named Dombar-lingada-vira-kaniki. This tax, under the name Dombar tafrik, was levied in Venkatagiri in 1801.” In the Madura district, Dommaras are found in some villages formerly owned by zamindars, and they call themselves children of the zamindars, by whom they were probably patronised.Being a criminal class, the Dommaras have a thief’s language of their own, of which the following are examples:—Bidam vadu, Dommara.Poothi, policeman.Marigam, pig.Goparam, seven.Dāsa-masa, prostitute.Kopparam, salt.Kaljodu, goldsmith.The Dommaras are said to receive into their community children of other castes, and women of doubtful morals, and to practice the custom of making Basavis (dedicated prostitutes).The Telugu Dommaras give as their gōtra Salava patchi, the name of a mythological bird. At times of marriage, they substitute a turmeric-dyed string consisting of 101 threads, called bondhu, for the golden tāli or bottu. The marriage ceremonies of the Ārē Dommaras are supervised by an old Basavi woman, and the golden marriage badge is tied round the bride’s neck by a Basavi.Ārē Dommara acrobat.Ārē Dommara acrobat.A Dommara, whom I interviewed at Coimbatore, carried a cotton bag containing a miscellaneous assortment of rubbish used in his capacity as medicine man and snake-charmer, which included a collection of spurious jackal horns (nari kompu), the hairs round which were stained with turmeric. To prove the genuineness thereof, he showed me not only the horn, but also the feet with nails complete, as evidence that the horns were not made from the nails. Being charged with manufacturing the horns, he swore, by placing his hand on the head of a child who accompanied him, that he was not deceiving me. The largest of the horns in his bag, he gravely informed me, was from a jackal which he dug out of its hole on the last new moon night. The possessors of such horns, he assured me, do not go out with thepack, and rarely leave their holes except to feed on dew, field rats, etc. These spurious horns are regarded as a talisman, and it is believed that he who owns one can command the realisation of every wish. (SeeKuruvikkāran.) An iron ring, which the Dommara was wearing on his wrist, was used as a cure for hernia, being heated and applied as a branding agent over the inguinal region. Lamp oil is then rubbed over the burn, and a secret medicine, mixed with fowl’s egg, administered. The ring was, he said, an ancestral heir-loom, and as such highly prized. To cure rheumatism in the big joints, he resorted to an ingenious form of dry cupping. A small incision is made with a piece of broken glass over the affected part, and the skin damped with water. The distal end of a cow’s horn, of which the tip has been removed, and plugged with wax, does duty for the cup. A hole is pierced through the wax with an iron needle, and, the horn being placed over the seat of disease, the air is withdrawn from it by suction with the mouth, and the hole in the wax stopped up. As the air is removed from the cavity of the horn, the skin rises up within it. To remove the horn, it is only necessary to readmit air by once more boring a hole through the wax. In a bad case, as many as three horns may be applied to the affected part. The Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford possesses dry-cupping apparatus, made of cow horn, from Mirzapur in Northern India and from Natal, and of antelope horn from an unrecorded locality in India. In cases of scorpion sting the Dommara rubbed up patent boluses with human milk or milk of the milk-hedge plant (Euphorbia Tirucalli), and applied them to the part. For chest pains he prescribed red ochre, and for infantile diseases myrabolam (Terminalia) fruits mixed with water. In cases ofsnake-bite, a black stone, said to be made of various drugs mixed together, and burnt, is placed over the seat of the bite, and will, it was stated, drop off of its own accord as soon as it has absorbed all the poison. It is then put into milk or water to extract the poison, and the fluid is thrown away as being dangerous to life if swallowed. As a remedy for the bite of a mad dog, a plant, which is kept a secret, is mixed with the milk of a white goat, pepper, garlic, and other ingredients, and administered internally. A single dose is said to effect a cure.At Tarikēri in Mysore, a wandering troupe of Ārē (Marātha) Dommaras performed before me. The women were decorated with jewels and flowers, and carried bells on their ankles. The men had a row of bells attached all round the lower edge of their short drawers. Before the performance commenced, a Pillayar (Ganēsa) was made with cowdung, and saluted. The entertainment took place in the open air amid the beating of drums, whistling, singing, and dialogue. The jests and antics of the equivalent of the circus clown were a source of much joy to the throng of villagers who collected to witness the tamāsha (spectacle). One of the principal performers, in the waits between his turns, played the drum, or took a suck at a hooka (tobacco pipe) which was passed round among the members of the troupe. The entertainment, in which both men and women took part, consisted of various acrobatic feats, turning summersaults and catherine wheels, stilt-walking, and clever feats on the tight rope. Finally a man, climbing up a lofty bamboo pole, spun himself rapidly round and round on the top of it by means of a socket in an iron plate tied to his loin cloth, into which a spike in the pole fitted.Dondia.—A title of Gaudo.Donga Dāsari.—Dāsari (servant of the god), Mr. Francis writes,61“in the strict sense of the word, is a religious mendicant of the Vaishnavite sect, who has formally devoted himself to an existence as such, and been formally included in the mendicant brotherhood by being branded on the shoulders with Vaishnavite symbols.” Far different are the Donga, or thief Dāsaris, who receive their name from the fact that “the men and women disguise themselves as Dāsaris, with perpendicular Vaishnava marks on their foreheads, and, carrying a lamp (Garuda kambum), a gong of bell-metal, a small drum called jagata, and a tuft of peacock feathers, go begging in the villages, and are at times treated with the sumptuous meals, including cakes offered to them as the disciples of Venkatēsvarlu.62”In an interesting article on the Donga Dāsaris, Mr. S. M. Natesa Sastri writes as follows.63“Quite opposed to the gudi (temple) Dāsaris are Donga Dāsaris. They are the most dreaded of the criminal classes in the Bellary district. In the early years of their settlement in Bellary, these Donga Dāsaris were said to have practiced kidnapping boys and girls of other castes to strengthen their number, and even now, as the practice stands, any person can become a Donga Dāsari though very few would like to become one. But, for all that, the chief castes who furnished members to this brotherhood of robbery were the scum of the Lingayats and the Kabbēras. Of course, none of the respectable members of these castes would join them, and only those who were excommunicated found a ready home among theseDonga Dāsaris. Sometimes Muhammadan budmāshes (bad-māsh, evil means of livelihood) and the worst characters from other castes, also become Donga Dāsaris. The way an alien is made a Donga Dāsari is as follows. The regular Donga Dāsaris take the party who wants to enter their brotherhood to the side of a river, make him bathe in oil, give him a new cloth, hold a council, and give a feast. They burn a twig of the sami (Prosopis spicigera) or margosa (Melia Azadirachta) tree, and slightly burn the tongue of the party who has joined them. This is the way of purification and acceptance of every new member, who, soon after the tongue-burning ceremony, is given a seat in the general company, and made to partake of the common feast. The Donga Dāsaris talk both Telugu and Kanarese. They have only two bedagas or family names, called Sunna Akki (thin rice) and Ghantelavāru (men of the bell). As the latter is a family name of the Kabbēras, it is an evidence that members of the latter community have joined the Donga Dāsaris. Even now Donga Dāsaris intermarry with Kabbēras,i.e., they accept any girl from a Kabbēra family in marriage to one of their sons, but do not give one of their daughters in marriage to a Kabbēra boy. Hanumān is their chief god. Venkatēsa, an incarnation of Vishnu, is also worshipped by many. But, in every one of their villages, they have a temple dedicated to their village goddess Huligavva or Ellamma, and it is only before these goddesses that they sacrifice sheep or fowls. Vows are undertaken for these village goddesses when children fall ill. In addition to this, these Donga Dāsaris are notorious for taking vows before starting on a thieving expedition, and the way these ceremonies are gone through is as follows. The gang, before starting on athieving expedition, proceed to a jungle near their village in the early part of the night, worship their favourite goddesses Huligavva or Ellamma, and sacrifice a sheep or fowl before her. They place one of their turbans on the head of the sheep or fowl that was sacrificed, as soon as the head falls on the ground. If the turban turns to the right, it is considered a good sign, the goddess having permitted them to proceed on the expedition; if to the left, they return home that night. Hanumān is also consulted in such expeditions, and the way in which it is done is as follows. They go to a Hanumān temple which is near their village, and, after worshipping him, garland him with a wreath of flowers. The garland hangs on both sides of the neck. If any flowers on the right side drop down first, it is considered as a permission granted by the god to start on plundering expeditions, and, conversely, these expeditions are never undertaken if any flowers happen to drop from the left side first. The Donga Dāsaris start on their thieving raids with their whole family, wife and children following. They are the great experts in house-breaking and theft, and children are taught thieving by their mothers when they are five or six years old. The mother takes her boy or girl to the nearest market, and shows the child some cloth or vessel, and asks it to bring it away. When it fails, it is thrashed, and, when stroke upon stroke falls upon its back, the only reply it is taught to give is that it knows nothing. This is considered to be the reply which the child, when it grows up to be a man or woman, has to give to the police authorities when it is caught in some crime and thrashed by them to confess. Whenever the Donga Dāsaris are caught by the police, they give false names and false castes. They have a cipher language among themselves. The DongaDāsari woman is very loose, but, if she go astray with a Brāhman, Lingayat, Kabbēra, Kuruba, Upparava, or Rājput, her tongue is burnt, and she is taken back into the community. Widow remarriage freely prevails. They avoid eating beef and pork, but have no objection to other kinds of flesh.”Donga Oddē.—The name for Oddēs who practice thieving as a profession.Dongayato.—A sub-division of Gaudo.Dongrudiya.—A sub-division of Māli.Dora.—Dora, meaning lord, has been returned as the title of numerous classes, which include Bōya, Ekāri, Jātāpu, Konda Dora, Mutrācha, Patra, Telaga, Velama, and Yānāti. The hill Kois or Koyis of the Godāvari district are known as Koi Dora or Doralu (lords). I am told that, in some parts of the Telugu country, if one hears a native referred to as Dora, he will generally turn out to be a Velama; and that there is the following gradation in the social scale:—Velama Dora = Velama Esquire.Kamma Vāru = Mr. Kamma.Kapu = Plain Kāpu, without an honorific suffix.In Southern India, Dorai or Durai (Master) is the equivalent of the northern Sāhib, and Dorasāni (Mistress) of Memsāhib.It is noted by Sir A. J. Arbuthnot64that “the appellation by which Sir Thomas Munro was most commonly known in the Ceded districts was that of Colonel Dora. And to this day it is considered a sufficient answer to enquiries regarding the reason for any Revenue Rule, that it was laid down by the Colonel Dora.”Dorabidda, or children of chiefs, is the name by which Bōyas, who claim to be descended from Poligars (feudal chiefs) call themselves.Drāvida.—A sub-division of Kamsala. South Indian Brāhmans are called Drāvidas.Dūbaduba.—Recorded, at times of census, as an Oriya form of Budubudukala.Duddu(money).—An exogamous sept of Māla.Dūdēkula.—The Dūdēkulas are described by Mr. H. A. Stuart65as “Muhammadans who have taken to the trade of cotton-cleaning (dūde, cotton; ekula, to clean). By the Tamils they are called Panjāri or Panjukotti, which have the same significance. Though Muhammadans, they have adopted or retained many of the customs of the Hindus around them, tying a tāli to the bride at marriage, being very ignorant of the Muhammadan religion, and even joining in Hindu worship as far as allowable. Circumcision is, however, invariable, and they are much given to the worship of Muhammadan saints. In dress they resemble the Hindus, and often shave off the beard, but do not leave a single lock of hair upon the head, as most Hindus do. Over three hundred Hindus have returned their caste as either Dūdēkula or Panjāri, but these are probably members of other castes, who call themselves Dūdēkula as they are engaged in cotton-cleaning.”The Dūdēkulas are described by Mr. W. Francis66as “a Muhammadan caste of cotton-cleaners, and rope and tape-makers. They are either converts to Islām, or the progeny of unions between Musalmans and the women of the country. Consequently they generally speak the Dravidian languages—either Canarese or Telugu—butsome of them speak Hindustāni also. Their customs are a mixture of those of the Musalmans and the Hindus. Inheritance is apparently according to Muhammadan law. They pray in mosques, and circumcise their boys, and yet some of them observe the Hindu festivals. They worship their tools at Bakrid and not at the Dasara; they raise the azān or Muhammadan call to prayers at sunset, and they pray at the tombs of Musalman saints.” In the Vizagapatam district, the Dūdēkulas are described as beating cotton, and blowing horns.For the following note on the Dūdēkulas of the Ceded Districts, I am indebted to Mr. Haji Khaja Hussain. They claim Bava Faqrud-dīn Pīr of Penukonda in the Anantapur district as their patron saint. Large numbers of Muhammadans, including Dūdēkulas, collect at the annual festival (mēla) at his shrine, and offer their homage in the shape of a fatiha. This, meaning opener, is the name of the first chapter of the Korān, which is repeated when prayers are offered for the souls of the departed. For this ceremony a pilau, made of flesh, rice and ghī (clarified butter) is prepared, and the Khāzi repeats the chapter, and offers the food to the soul of the deceased saint or relation.The story of Faqrud-dīn Pīr is as follows. He was born in A.H. 564 (about A.D. 1122), and was King of Seistan in Persia. One day, while he was administering justice, a merchant brought some horses before him for sale. His attention was diverted, and he became for a time absorbed in contemplation of the beauty of one of the horses. Awakening from his reverie, he blamed himself for allowing his thoughts to wander when he was engaged in the most sacred of his duties as a king. He summoned a meeting of all the learned moulvis in his kingdom, and enquired of them what was the penaltyfor his conduct. They unanimously decreed that he should abdicate. Accordingly he placed his brother on the throne, and, becoming a dervish, came to India, and wandered about in the jungles. Eventually he arrived at Trichinopoly, and there met the celebrated saint Tabri-Ālam, whose disciple he became. After his admission into holy orders, he was told to travel about, and plant his miswāk wherever he halted, and regard the place where it sprouted as his permanent residence. The miswāk, or tooth-brush, is a piece of the root of the pīlū tree (Salvadora persica), which is used by Muhammadans, and especially Fakirs, for cleaning the teeth. When Bava Faqrud-dīn arrived at Penukonda hill, he, as usual, planted the miswāk, which sprouted. He accordingly decided to make this spot his permanent abode. But there was close by an important Hindu temple, and the idea of a Muhammadan settling close to it enraged the Hindus, who asked him to leave. He not only refused to do so, but allowed his disciples, of whom a number had collected, to slaughter a sacred bull belonging to the temple. The Hindus accordingly decided to kill Faqrud-dīn and his disciples. The Rāja collected an armed force, and demanded the restoration of the bull. Faqrud-dīn ordered one of his disciples to bring before him the skin, head, feet and tail of the animal, which had been preserved. Striking the skin with his staff, he exclaimed “Rise, Oh! bull, at the command of God.” The animal immediately rose in a complete state of restoration, and would not leave the presence of his preserver. Alarmed at this miracle, the Hindus brandished their swords and spears, and were about to fall on the Muhammadans, when a dust-storm arose and blinded them. In their confusion, they began to slay each other, and left the spot in dismay. TheRāja then resolved to kill the Muhammadans by poisoning them. He prepared some cakes mixed with poison, and sent them to Faqrud-dīn for distribution among his disciples. The saint, though he knew that the cakes were poisoned, partook thereof of himself, as also did his disciples, without any evil effect. A few days afterwards, the Rāja was attacked with colic, and his case was given up by the court physicians as hopeless. As a last resort, he was taken before Faqrud-dīn, who offered him one of the poisoned cakes, which cured him. Falling at his feet, the Rāja begged for pardon, and offered the village of Penukonda to Faqrud-dīn as a jaghīr (annuity). This offer was declined, and the saint asked that the temple should be converted into a mosque. The Rāja granted this request, and it is said that large numbers of Hindus embraced the Muhammadan religion, and were the ancestors of the Dūdēkulas.The Dūdēkulas, like the Hindus, like to possess some visible symbol for worship, and they enrol great personages who have died among the number of those at whose graves they worship. So essential is this grave worship that, if a place is without one, a grave is erected in the name of some saint. Such a thing has happened in recent times in Banganapalle. A Fakir, named Allā Bakhsh, died at Kurnool. A Dūdēkula of the Banganapalle State visited his grave, took away a lump of earth from the ground near it, and buried it in a village ten miles from Banganapalle. A shrine was erected over it in the name of the saint, and has become very famous for the miracles which are performed at it. An annual festival is held, which is attended by large numbers of Muhammadans and Dūdēkulas.Some Dūdēkulas have names which, though at first sight they seem to be Hindu, are really Muhammadan.For example, Kambannah is a corruption of Kamal Sahib, and Sakali, which in Telugu means a washerman, seems to be an altered form of Sheik Āli. Though Dūdēkulas say that they are Muhammadans of the Sheik sect, the name Sheik is only occasionally used as a prefix,e.g., Sheik Hussain or Sheik Āli. Names of males are Hussain Sa, Fakir Sa, and Khāsim Sa. Sa is an abbreviated form of Sahib. One old Dūdēkula stated that the title Sahib was intended for pucka (genuine) Muhammadans, and that the Dūdēkulas could not lay claim to the title in its entirety. Instead of Sa, Bhai, meaning brother, is sometimes used as a suffix to the name,e.g., Ghudu Bhai. Ghudu, meaning ash-heap, is an opprobrious name given to children of those whose offspring have died young, in the hope of securing long life to them. The child is taken, immediately after birth, to an ash-heap, where some of the ashes are sprinkled over it. Some Dūdēkulas adopt the Hindu termination appa (father), anna (brother), or gadu,e.g., Pullanna, Nāganna, Yerkalappa, Hussaingadu, Hussainappa. Typical names of females are Roshammā, Jamalammā, and Madarammā. They have dropped the title Bibi or Bi, and adopted the Hindu title ammā (mother).The ceremony of naming a child is generally performed on the sixth day after its birth. The choice of a name is entrusted to an elderly female member of the family. In some cases, the name of a deceased ancestor who lived to an advanced age is taken. If a child dies prematurely, there is a superstitious prejudice against its name, which is avoided by the family. Very frequently a father and son, and sometimes two or three brothers, have the same name. In such a case prefixes are added to their names as a means of distinguishing them,e.g., Pedda (big), Nadpi (middle), Chinna (little). Sometimestwo names are assumed by an individual, one a Hindu name for every day use, the other Muhammadan for ceremonial occasions.The Dūdēkulas depend for the performance of their ceremonies largely on the Khāzi, by whom even the killing of a fowl for domestic purposes has to be carried out. The Dūdēkula, like other Muhammadans, is averse to taking animal life without due religious rites, and the zabh, or killing of an animal for food, is an important matter. One who is about to do so should first make vazu (ablution), by cleaning his teeth and washing his mouth, hands, face, forearms, head and feet. He should then face the west, and an assistant holds the animal to be slaughtered upside down, and facing west. Water is poured into its mouth, and the words Bismillā hi Allā hu Akbar uttered. The operator then cuts the throat, taking care that the jugular veins are divided. In remote villages, where a Khāzi is not available, the Dūdēkulas keep a sacrificial knife, which has been sanctified by the Khāzi repeating over it the same words from the Korān as are used when an animal is slaughtered.The first words which a Muhammadan child should hear are those of the azān, or call to prayer, which are uttered in its ear immediately after birth. This ceremony is observed by those Dūdēkulas who live in towns or big villages, or can afford the services of a Khāzi. It is noted by Mr. Francis that the Dūdēkulas raise the azān at sunset. A few, who have been through a course of religious instruction at a Madrasa (school), may be able to do this. A Muhammadan is supposed to raise the azān five times daily, viz., before sunrise, between noon and 3P.M., between 4 and 6P.M., at sunset, and between 8P.M.and midnight.At the naming of an infant on the sixth day, the Dūdēkulas do not, like other Muhammadans, perform the aguigā ceremony, which consists of shaving the child’s head, and sacrificing a he-goat. Children are circumcised before the tenth year. On such occasions the Muhammadans generally invite their friends, and distribute sweets and pān-supāri (betel leaf and areca nuts). The Dūdēkulas simply send for a barber, Hindu or Muhammadan, who performs the operation in the presence of a Khāzi, if one happens to be available. When a girl reaches puberty, the Dūdēkulas invite their friends to a feast. Other Muhammadans, on the contrary, keep the fact a secret.At the betrothal ceremony, when sweets and pān-supāri are taken by the future bridegroom and his party to the house of the girl whom he seeks in marriage, the female members of both families, and the girl herself, are present. This fact shows the absence of the Muhammadan gōsha system among Dūdēkulas. A Muhammadan wedding lasts over five or six days, whereas the ceremonies are, among the Dūdēkulas, completed within twenty-four hours. On the night preceding the nikka day, a pilau is prepared, and a feast is held at the bridegroom’s house. On the following morning, when it is still dark, the bridegroom, accompanied by his relations, starts on horseback in procession, with beating of drums and letting off of fireworks. The procession arrives at the bride’s house before sunrise. The Khāzi is sent for, and the mahr is settled. This is a nominal gift settled on the wife before marriage by the bridegroom. On the death of a husband, a widow has priority of claim on his property to the promised amount of the mahr. Two male witnesses are sent to the bride, to obtain her assent to the union, and to the amount ofthe mahr. The Khāzi, being an orthodox Muhammadan, treats the Dūdēkula bride as strictly gōsha for the time being, and, therefore, selects two of her near relatives as witnesses. The lutcha (marriage badge), consisting of a single or double string of beads, is brought in a cup filled with sandal paste.The Khāzi chants the marriage service, and sends the lutcha in to the bride with his blessing. It is tied round her neck by the female relations of the bridegroom, and the marriage rites are over.The usual Muhammadan form of greeting among Muhammadans is the familiar “Peace be with you.” “And with you be peace.” When a Dūdēkula greets a Muhammadan, he simply bows, and, with members of his own community, uses a Telugu form of salutation,e.g., nīku mokkutāmu.The Dūdēkulas, male and female, dress exactly like Hindus, but, as a rule, the men do not shave their beard.Disputes, and social questions affecting the community, are settled by a Khāzi.With the increase in cotton mills, and the decline of the indigenous hand-weaving industry, the demand for cotton-cleaning labour has diminished, and some Dūdēkulas have, of necessity, taken to agriculture. Land-owners are very scarce among them, but some are abkāri (liquor) contractors, village schoolmasters, and quack doctors. In the Ceded Districts, the cotton-cleaning industry is solely confined to the Dūdēkulas.The synonyms of Dūdēkula, Ladaf and Nūrbāsh, recorded at times of census, are corruptions of Nad-dāf (a cotton dresser) and Nūrbāf (weaving).Dūdi.—A title of Kurumos, who officiate as priests at the temples of village deities.Dūdi(cotton)Balija.—A name for traders in cotton in the Telugu country, and an occupational sub-division of Kōmati.Durga(fort).—A gōtra of Kurni.Dūtan.—Recorded, in the Travancore Census Report, as a synonym of Āri.Dyavana(tortoise).—An exogamous sept of Mogēr.
cm.Padma Sālē159.9Sūkūn Sālē160.3Togata160.5Suka Sālē161.1
Dēvēndra.—A name assumed by some Pallans, who claim to be descended from the king of the gods (dēvas).
Dhabba(split bamboo).—Dhabba or Dhabbai is the name of a sub-division of Koravas, who split bamboos, and make various articles therefrom.
Dhakkado.—A small mixed class of Oriya cultivators, concerning whom there is a proverb that a Dhakkado does not know his father. They are described, in the Census Report, 1891, as “a caste of cultivators found in the Jeypore agency tracts. They are said to be the offspring of a Brāhman and a Sūdra girl, and, though living on the hills, they are not an uncivilised hill tribe. Some prepare and sell the sacred thread, others are confectioners. They wear the sacred thread, and do not drink water from the hands of any except Brāhmans. Girls are married before puberty, and widow marriage is practiced. They are flesh-eaters, and their dead are usually buried.”
In a note on the Dhakkados, Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao writes that “the illegitimate descendant of a Brāhman and a hill woman of the non-polluting castes is said to be known as a Dhakkado. The Dhakkados assume Brāhmanical names, but, as regards marriages, funerals, etc., follow the customs of their mother’s caste. Her caste people intermarry with her children. ADhakkado usually follows the occupation of his mother’s caste. Thus one whose mother is a Kevuto follows the calling of fishing or plying boats on rivers, one whose mother is a Bhumia is an agriculturist, and so on.”
Dhakūr.—Stated, in the Manual of the Vizagapatam district, to be illegitimate children of Brāhmans, who wear the paieta (sacred thread).
Dhanapāla.—A sub-division of Gollas, who guard treasure while it is in transit.
Dhangar.—Dhangar, or Donigar, is recorded, in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as a Marāthi caste of shepherds and cattle-breeders. I gather, from a note45on the Dhangars of the Kanara district in the Bombay Presidency, that “the word Dhangar is generally derived from the Sanskrit dhenu, a cow. Their home speech is Marāthi, but they can speak Kanarese. They keep a special breed of cows and buffaloes, known as Dhangar mhasis and Dhangar gāis which are the largest cattle in Kanara. Many of Shivāji’s infantry were Sātāra Dhangars.”
Dhaniāla(coriander).—An exogamous sept of Kamma. Dhaniāla Jāti, or coriander caste, is an opprobrious name applied to Kōmatis, indicating that, in business transactions, they must be crushed as coriander fruits are crushed before the seed is sown.
Dhāre.—An exogamous sept of Kuruba. In the Canara country, the essential and binding part of the marriage ceremony is called dhāre (seeBant).
Dharmarāja.—An exogamous sept of the Irulas of North Arcot. Dharmarāja was the eldest of the five Pāndavas, the heroes of the Mahābhāratha.
Dhippo(light).—An exogamous sept of Bhondāri. The members thereof may not blow out lights, or extinguish them in any other way. They will not light lamps without being madi,i.e., wearing silk cloths, or cloths washed and dried after bathing.
Dhōbi.—A name used for washerman by Anglo-Indians all over India. The word is said to be derived from dhōha, Sanskrit, dhāv, to wash. A whitish grey sandy efflorescence, found in many places, from which, by boiling and the addition of quicklime, an alkali of considerable strength is obtained, is called Dhōbi’s earth.46“The expression dhobie itch,” Manson writes,47“although applied to any itching ringworm-like affection of any part of the skin, most commonly refers to some form of epiphytic disease of the crutch or axilla (armpit).” The disease is very generally supposed to be communicated by clothes from the wash, but Manson is of opinion that the belief that it is contracted from clothes which have been contaminated by the washerman is probably not very well founded.
Dhōbi is the name, by which the washerman caste of the Oriyas is known. “They are said,” Mr. Francis writes,48“to have come originally from Orissa. Girls are generally married before maturity, and, if this is not possible, they have to be married to a sword or a tree, before they can be wedded to a man. Their ordinary marriage ceremonies are as follows. The bridal pair bathe in water brought from seven different houses. The bridegroom puts a bangle on the bride’s arm (this is the binding part of the ceremony); the left and right wrists of the bride and bridegroom are tied together; betel leaf and nut are tied in a corner of the bride’s cloth, and amyrabolam (Terminaliafruit) in that of the bridegroom; and finally the people present in the pandal (booth) throw rice and saffron (turmeric) over them. Widows and divorced women may marry again. They are Vaishnavites, but some of them also worship Kāli or Durga. They employ Bairāgis, and occasionally Brāhmans, as their priests. They burn their dead, and perform srāddha (annual memorial ceremony). Their titles are Chetti (or Mahā Chetti) and Bēhara.” The custom of the bridal pair bathing in water from seven different houses obtains among many Oriya castes, including Brāhmans. It is known by the name of pāni-tula. The water is brought by married girls, who have not reached puberty, on the night preceding the wedding day, and the bride and bridegroom wash in it before dawn. This bath is called koili pāni snāno, or cuckoo water-bath. The koil is the Indian koel or cuckoo (Eudynamis honorata), whose crescendo cry ku-il, ku-il, is trying to the nerves during the hot season.
The following proverbs49relating to washermen may be quoted:—
Get a new washerman, and an old barber.The washerman knows the defects of the village (i.e., he learns a good deal about the private affairs of the various families, when receiving and delivering the clothes).When a washerman gets sick, his sickness must leave him at the stone. The stone referred to is the large stone, on which the washerman cleans cloths, and the proverb denotes that, however sick a washerman may be, his work must be done.
Get a new washerman, and an old barber.
The washerman knows the defects of the village (i.e., he learns a good deal about the private affairs of the various families, when receiving and delivering the clothes).
When a washerman gets sick, his sickness must leave him at the stone. The stone referred to is the large stone, on which the washerman cleans cloths, and the proverb denotes that, however sick a washerman may be, his work must be done.
Dhoddi.—Dhoddi, meaning a court or back-yard, cattle-pen, or sheep-fold, has been recorded as an exogamous sept of Dēvānga, Koppala Velama, Kama Sālē, Māla, and Yānādi.
Dhoddiyan.—A name given by Tamilians to Jōgis.
Dhollo.—Dhollo is recorded in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as the same as Doluva. A correspondent informs me that Dhollo is said to be different from Doluva.
Dhōma(gnat or mosquito).—An exogamous sept of Māla.
Dhondapu(Cephalandra indica).—An exogamous sept of Dēvānga. The fruit is one of the commonest of native vegetables, and cooked in curries.
Dhōni(boat).—An exogamous sept of Mīla and Oruganti Kāpu. In a paper on the native vessels of South India by Mr. Edge, published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, the dhōni is described as “a vessel of ark-like form, about 70 feet long, 20 feet broad, and 11 feet deep, with a flat bottom or keel part, which at the broadest place is 7 feet.
“The whole equipment of these rude vessels, as well as their construction, is the most coarse and unseaworthy that I have ever seen.” The dhōni, with masts, is represented in the ancient lead and copper coinage of Southern India.
Dhor.—In the Madras Census Report, 1901, a few (164) individuals were returned as “Dhēr, a low caste of Marāthi leather workers.” They were, I gather from the Bombay Gazetteer, Dhors or tanners who dwell in various parts of the Bombay Presidency, and whose home speech, names and surnames seem to show that they have come from the Marātha country.
Dhūdala(calves).—An exogamous sept of Thūmati Golla.
Dhudho(milk).—A sept of Omanaito.
Dhuggāni(money).—An exogamous sept of Dēvānga.
Dhūliya.—Dhūliya or Dūlia is a small class of Oriya cultivators, some of whom wear the sacred thread, and employ Boishnobs as their priests. Marriage before puberty is not compulsory, and widows can remarry. They eat flesh. The dead are cremated.50The name is said to be derived from dhuli, dust, with which those who work in the fields are covered. Dhūliya also means carriers of dhulis (dhoolies), which are a form of palanquin.
Didāvi.—A sub-division of Poroja.
Digambara(space-clad or sky-clad,i.e., nude).—One of the two main divisions of the Jains. The Digambaras are said51to “regard absolute nudity as the indispensable sign of holiness, though the advance of civilisation has compelled them to depart from the practice of their theory.”
Dīvar.—SeeDēva.
Diyāsi.—An exogamous sept of Dandāsi. The members thereof show special reverence for the sun, and cloths, mokkutos (forehead chaplets), garlands, and other articles to be used by the bride and bridegroom at a wedding are placed outside the house, so that they may be exposed to it.
Dolaiya.—A title of Doluva and Odia.
Dolobēhara.—The name of headmen or their assistants among many Oriya castes. In some cases,e.g., among the Haddis, the name is used as a title by families, members of which are headmen.
Doluva.—The Doluvas of Ganjam are, according to the Madras Census Report, 1891, “supposed to be the descendants of the old Rājahs by their concubines, and were employed as soldiers and attendants. The name issaid to be derived from the Sanskrit dola, meaning army.” The Doluvas claim to be descended from the Puri Rājahs by their concubines, and say that some of them were employed as sirdars and paiks under these Rājahs. They are said to have accompanied a certain Puri Rājah who came south to wage war, and to have settled in Ganjam. They are at the present day mainly engaged in agriculture, though some are traders, bricklayers, cart-drivers, etc. The caste seems to be divided into five sections, named Kondaiyito, Lenka, Rabba, Pottia, and Beharania, of which the first two are numerically the strongest and most widely distributed. Kondaiyito is said to be derived from kondo, an arrow, and to indicate warrior. The Kondaiyitos sometimes style themselves Rājah Doluvas, and claim superiority over the other sections. It is noted, in the Madras Census Report, 1891, that “Oriya Zamindars get wives from this sub-division, but the men of it cannot marry into the Zamindar’s families. They wear the sacred thread, and are writers.” In former days, the title writer was applied to the junior grade of Civil Servants of the East India Company. It is now used to denote a copying clerk in an office.
Various titles occur among members of the caste,e.g., Bissoyi, Biswālo, Dolei, Jenna, Kottiya, Mahanti, Majhi, Nāhako, Porida, Rāvuto, Sāmulo, and Sāni.
The ordinary caste council system, with a hereditary headman, seems to be absent among the Doluvas, and the affairs of the caste are settled by leading members thereof.
The Doluvas are Paramarthos, following the Chaitanya form of Vaishnavism, and wearing a rosary of tulsi (Ocimum sanctum) beads. They further worship various Tākurānis (village deities), among which are Kālva, Bāgadēvi, Kotari, Mahēswari, and Manickēswari. Theyare in some places very particular regarding the performance of srādh (memorial ceremony), which is carried out annually in the following manner. On the night before the srādh day, a room is prepared for the reception of the soul of the deceased. This room is called pitru bharano (reception of the ancestor). The floor thereof is cleansed with cow-dung water, and a lamp fed with ghī (clarified butter) is placed on it by the side of a plank. On this plank a new cloth is laid for the reception of various articles for worship,e.g., sacred grass,Zizyphus jujubaleaves, flowers, etc. In front of the plank a brass vessel, containing water and a tooth brush ofAchyranthes asperaroot, is placed. The dead person’s son throws rice andZizyphusleaves into the air, and calls on the deceased to come and give a blessing on the following day. The room is then locked, and the lamp kept burning in it throughout the night. On the following day, all old pots are thrown away and, after a small space has been cleaned on the floor of the house, a pattern is drawn thereon with flour in the form of a square or oblong with twelve divisions. On each division a jak (Artocarpus integrifolia) leaf is placed, and on each leaf the son puts cooked rice and vegetables. A vessel containingAchyranthesroot, and a plank with a new cloth on it, are set by the side of the pattern. After worship has been performed and food offered, the cloth is presented to a Brāhman, and the various articles used in the ceremonial are thrown into water.
Dōmb.—The name Dōmb or Dōmbo is said to be derived from the word dumba, meaning devil, in reference to the thieving propensities of the tribe. The Dōmbas, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,52“are a Dravidiancaste of weavers and menials, found in the hill tracts of Vizagapatam. This caste appears to be an offshoot of the Dōm caste of Bengal, Behār, and the North-Western Provinces. Like the Dōms, the Dōmbas are regarded with disgust, because they eat beef, pork, horse-flesh, rats, and the flesh of animals which have died a natural death, and both are considered to be Chandālas or Pariahs by the Bengālis and the Uriyas. The Dōmbs weave the cloths and blankets worn by the hill people, but, like the Pariahs of the plains, they are also labourers, scavengers, etc. Some of them are extensively engaged in trade, and they have, as a rule, more knowledge of the world than the ryots who despise them. They are great drunkards.” In the Census Report, 1871, it was noted that “in many villages, the Dōms carry on the occupation of weaving, but, in and around Jaipur, they are employed as horse-keepers, tom-tom beaters, scavengers, and in other menial duties. Notwithstanding their abject position in the social scale, some signs of progress may be detected amongst them. They are assuming the occupation, in many instances, of petty hucksters, eking out a livelihood by taking advantage of the small difference in rates between market and market.”
“The Dōmbs,” Mr. F. Fawcett writes,53“are an outcast jungle people, who inhabit the forests on the high lands fifty to eighty or a hundred miles from the east coast, about Vizagapatam. Being outcast, they are never allowed to live within a village, but have their own little hamlet adjoining a village proper, inhabited by people of various superior castes. It is fair to say that the Dōmbs are akin to the Pānos of the adjoiningKhond country, a Pariah folk who live amongst the Khonds, and used to supply the human victims for the Meriah sacrifices. Indeed, the Khonds, who hold them in contemptuous inferiority, call them Dōmbas as a sort of alternative title to Pānos. The Paidis of the adjoining Savara or Saora country are also, doubtless, kinsmen of the Dōmbs. [The same man is said to be called Paidi by Telugus, Dōmbo by the Savaras, and Pāno by the Khonds. It is noted in the Census Report, 1881, that the Pāno quarters in Khond villages are called Dōmbo Sai.] In most respects their condition is a very poor one. Though they live in the best part of the Presidency for game, they know absolutely nothing of hunting, and cannot even handle a bow and arrow. They have, however, one respectable quality, industry, and are the weavers, traders, and money-lenders of the hills, being very useful as middlemen between the Khonds, Sauras, Gadabas, and other hill people on the one hand, and the traders of the plains on the other. I am informed, on good authority, that there are some Dōmbs who rise higher than this, but cannot say whether these are, or are not crosses with superior races. Most likely they are, for most of the Dōmbs are arrant thieves. It was this propensity for thieving, in fact, which had landed some hundreds of them in the jail at Vizagapatam when I visited that place, and gave me an opportunity of recording their measurements.” The averages of the more important of these measurements are as follows:—
cm.Stature161.9Cephalic length18.8Cephalic breadth14.3Cephalic index75.6Nasal index86.5
It is noted by the Missionary Gloyer54that the colour of the skin of the Dōmbs varies from very dark to yellow, and their height from that of an Aryan to the short stature of an aboriginal, and that there is a corresponding variation in facial type.
For the following note on the Dōmbs, I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. They are the weavers, traders, musicians, beggars, and money-lenders of the hills. Some own cattle, and cultivate. The hill people in the interior are entirely dependent on them for their clothing. A few Dōmb families are generally found to each village. They act as middlemen between the hill people and the Kōmati traders. Their profits are said to be large, and their children are, in some places, found attending hill schools. As musicians, they play on the drum and pipe. They are the hereditary musicians of the Mahārāja of Jeypore. A Dōmb beggar, when engaged in his professional calling, goes about from door to door, playing on a little pipe. Their supposed powers over devils and witches result in their being consulted when troubles appear. Though the Dōmbs are regarded as a low and polluting class, they will not eat at the hands of Kōmatis, Bhondāris, or Ghāsis. Some Dōmbas have become converts to Christianity through missionary influence.
In the Madras Census Report, 1891, the following sections of the Dōmbs are recorded:—Onomia, Odia, Māndiri, Mirgām, and Kohara. The sub-divisions, however, seem to be as follows:—Mirigāni, Kobbiriya, Odiya, Sōdabisiya, Māndiri, and Andiniya. There are also various septs, of which the following have been recorded among the Odiyas:—Bhāg (tiger), Bālu (bear),Nāg (cobra), Hanumān (the monkey god), Kochchipo (tortoise), Bengri (frog), Kukra (dog), Surya (sun), Matsya (fish), and Jaikonda (lizard). It is noted by Mr. Fawcett that “monkeys, frogs, and cobras are taboo, and also the sunāri tree (Ochna squarrosa). The big lizard, cobras, frogs, and the crabs which are found in the paddy fields, and are usually eaten by jungle people, may not be eaten.”
When a girl reaches puberty, she remains outside the hut for five days, and then bathes at the nearest stream, and is presented with a new cloth. In honour of the event, drink is distributed among her relatives. Girls are usually married after puberty. A man can claim his paternal aunt’s daughter in marriage. When a proposal of marriage is to be made, the suitor carries some pots of liquor, usually worth two rupees, to the girl’s house, and deposits them in front of it. If her parents consent to the match, they take the pots inside, and drink some of the liquor. After some time has elapsed, more liquor, worth five rupees, is taken to the girl’s house. A reduction in the quantity of liquor is made when a man is proposing for the hand of his paternal aunt’s daughter, and, on the second occasion, the liquor will only be worth three rupees. A similar reduction is made in the jholla tonka, or bride price. On the wedding day, the bridegroom goes, accompanied by his relations, to the bride’s home, where, at the auspicious moment fixed by the Desāri, his father presents new cloths to himself and the bride, which they put on. They stand before the hut, and on each is placed a cloth with a myrabolam (Terminalia) seed, rice, and a few copper coins tied up in it. The bridegroom’s right little finger is linked with the left little finger of the bride, and they enter the hut. On the following day, the newlymarried couple repair to the home of the bridegroom. On the third day, they are bathed in turmeric water, a pig is killed, and a feast is held. On the ninth day, the knots in the cloths, containing the myrabolams, rice, and coins, are untied, and the marriage ceremonies are at an end. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and a younger brother usually marries the widow of his elder brother.
It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “some of the Dōmbus of the Parvatipur Agency follow many of the customs of the low-country castes, including mēnarikam (marriage with the maternal uncle’s daughter), and say they are the same as the Paidis (or Paidi Mālas) of the plains adjoining, with whom they intermarry.”
The corpses of the more prosperous Dōmbs are usually cremated. The wood of the sunāri tree and relli (Cassia fistula) may not be used for the pyre. The son or husband of a deceased person has his head, moustache, and armpits shaved on the tenth day.
Dōmb women, and women of other tribes in the Jeypore Agency tracts, wear silver ear ornaments called nāgul, representing a cobra just about to strike with tongue protruded. Similar ornaments of gold, called nāga pōgulu (cobra-shaped earrings), are worn by women of some Telugu castes in the plains of Vizagapatam.
The personal names of the Dōmbs are, as among other Oriya castes, often those of the day of the week on which the individual was born.
Concerning the religion of the Dōmbs, Mr. Fawcett notes that “their chief god—probably an ancestral spirit—is called Kaluga. There is one in each village, in the headman’s house. The deity is represented by a pie piece (copper coin), placed in or over a new earthenpot smeared with rice and turmeric powder. During worship, a silk cloth, a new cloth, or a wet cloth may be worn, but one must not dress in leaves. Before the mangoes are eaten, the first-fruits are offered to the moon, at the full moon of the month Chitra.”
“When,” Gloyer writes, “a house has to be built, the first thing is to select a favourable spot, to which few evil spirits (dūmas) resort. At this spot they put, in several places, three grains of rice arranged in such a way that the two lower grains support the upper one. To protect the grains, they pile up stones round them, and the whole is lightly covered with earth. When, after some time, they find on inspection that the upper grain has fallen off, the spot is regarded as unlucky, and must not be used. If the position of the grains remains unchanged, the omen is regarded as auspicious. They drive in the first post, which must have a certain length, say of five, seven, or nine ells, the ell being measured from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow. The post is covered on the top with rice straw, leaves, and shrubs, so that birds may not foul it, which would be regarded as an evil omen. [In Madras, a story is current, with reference to the statue of Sir Thomas Munro, that he seized upon all the rice depôts, and starved the people to death by selling rice in egg-shells at one shell for a rupee, and, to punish him, the Government erected the statue in an open place, so that the birds of the air might insult him by polluting his face.] In measuring the house, odd numbers play an important part. The number four (pura, or full number), however, forms the proper measurement, whereby they measure the size of the house, according to the pleasure of the builder. But now the Dissary (Dēsāri) decides whether the house shall be built on the nandi, dua, or tia system, nandisignifying one, dua two, and tia three. This number of ells must be added to the measurement of the house. Supposing that the length of the house is twelve ells, then it will be necessary to add one ell according to the nandi system, so that the length amounts to thirteen ells. The number four can only be used for stables.”
“The Dūmas,” Gloyer continues, “are represented as souls of the deceased, which roam about without a home, so as to cause to mankind all possible harm. At the birth of a child, the Dūma must be invited in a friendly manner to provide the child with a soul, and protect it against evil. For this purpose, a fowl is killed on the ninth day, a bone (beinknochen) detached, and pressed in to the hand of the infant. The relations are seated in solemn silence, and utter the formula:—When grandfather, grandmother, father, or brother comes, throw away the bone, and we will truly believe it. No sooner does the sprawling and excited infant drop the bone, than the Dūmas are come, and boisterous glee prevails. The Dūmas occasionally give vent to their ghostly sounds, and cause no little consternation among the inmates of a house, who hide from fear. Cunning thieves know how to rob the superstitious by employing instruments with a subdued tone (dumpftönende), or by emitting deep sounds from the chest. The yearly sacrifice to a Dūma consists of a black fowl and strong brandy. If a member of a family falls ill, an extraordinary sacrifice has to be offered up. The Dūma is not regarded only as an evil spirit, but also as a tutelary deity. He protects one against the treacherous attacks of witches. A place is prepared for him in the door-hinge, or a fishing-net, wherein he lives, is placed over the door. The witches must count all the knots of the net, before they can enter. Devil worship is closely connected with that of theDūma. The devil’s priests, and in rare cases priestesses, effect communion between the people and the Dūmas by a sort of possession, which the spirit, entering into them, is said to give rise to. This condition, which is produced by intoxicating drink and the fumes of burning incense, gives rise to revolting cramp-like contortions, and muscular quiverings. In this state, they are wont to communicate what sacrifices the spirits require. On special occasions, they fall into a frenzied state, in which they cut their flesh with sharp instruments, or pass long, thin iron bars through the tongue and cheeks, during which operation no blood must flow. For this purpose, the instruments are rubbed all over with some blood-congealing material or sap. They also affect sitting on a sacred swing, armed with long iron nails. [Mr. G. F. Paddison informs me that he once saw a villager in the Vizagapatam district, sitting outside the house, while groans proceeded from within. He explained that he was ill, and his wife was swinging on nails with their points upwards, to cure him.] The devil called Jom Duto, or messenger of the going, is believed to be a one-eyed, limping, black individual, whose hair is twisted into a frightfully long horn, while one foot is very long, and the other resembles the hoof of a buffalo. He makes his appearance at the death-bed, in order to drag his victim to the realm of torture.”
Children are supposed to be born without souls, and to be afterwards chosen as an abode by the soul of an ancestor. The coming of the ancestor is signalised by the child dropping a chicken bone which has been thrust into its hand, and much rejoicing follows among the assembled relations.55
Mr. Paddison tells me that some Dōmbs are reputed to be able to pour blazing oil over their bodies, without suffering any hurt; and one man is said to have had a miraculous power of hardening his skin, so that any one could have a free shot at him, without hurting him. He further narrates that, at Sujanakōta in the Vizagapatam district, the Dōmbs, notwithstanding frequent warnings, put devils into two successive schoolmasters.
Various tattoo devices, borne by the Dōmbs examined by Mr. Fawcett, are figured and described by him. “These patterns,” he writes, “were said to be, one and all, purely ornamental, and not in any way connected with totems, or tribal emblems.” Risley, however,56regards “four out of the twelve designs as pretty closely related to the religion and mythology of the tribe; two are totems and two have reference to the traditional avocations. Nos. 11 and 12 represent a classical scene in Dōm folk-lore, the story of King Haris-Chandra, who was so generous that he gave all he had to the poor and sold himself to a Dōm at Benares, who employed him to watch his cremation ground at night. While he was thus engaged, his wife, who had also been sold for charitable purposes, came to burn the body of her son. She had no money to pay her fees, and Haris-Chandra, not knowing her in the darkness, turned her away. Fortunately the sun rose; mutual recognition followed; the victims of promiscuous largesse were at once remarried, and Vishnu intervened to restore the son to life. Tatu No. 11 shows Haris-Chandra watching the burning-ground by moonlight; the wavy line is the Ganges; the dots are the trees on the other side; the strokes on either side of the king are the logs of wood,which he is guarding. In No. 12 we see the sun rising, its first ray marked with a sort of fork, and the meeting of the king and queen.”
It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “throughout the Jeypore country proper, the Dombus (and some Ghāsis) are by far the most troublesome class. Their favourite crime is cattle-theft for the sake of the skins, but, in 1902, a Dombu gang in Naurangpūr went so far as to levy blackmail over a large extent of country, and defy for some months all attempts at capture. The loss of their cattle exasperates the other hill folk to the last degree, and, in 1899, the Naiks (headmen) of sixteen villages in the north of Jeypore tāluk headed an organized attack on the houses of the Dombus, which, in the most deliberate manner, they razed to the ground in some fifteen villages. The Dombus had fortunately got scent of what was coming, and made themselves scarce, and no bloodshed occurred. In the next year, some of the Naiks of the Rāmagiri side of Jeypore tāluk sent round a jack branch, a well-recognised form of the fiery cross, summoning villagers other than Dombus to assemble at a fixed time and place, but this was luckily intercepted by the police. The Agent afterwards discussed the whole question with the chief Naiks of Jeypore and South Naurangpūr. Theyhad no opinion of the deterrent effects of mere imprisonment on the Dombus. ‘You fatten them, and send them back,’ they said, and suggested that a far better plan would be to cut off their right hands. [It is noted, in the Vizagapatam Manual, 1869, that in cases of murder, the Rājah of Jeypore generally had the man’s hands, nose, and ears cut off, but, after all that, he seldom escaped the deceased’s relatives.] They eventually proposed a plan of checking the cattle-thefts, which is now being followed in much of that country. The Bāranaiks, or heads of groups of villages, were each given brands with distinctive letters and numbers, and required to brand the skins of all animals which had died a natural death or been honestly killed; and the possession by Dombus, skin merchants, or others, of unbranded skins is now considered a suspicious circumstance, the burden of explaining which lies upon the possessor. Unless this, or some other way of checking the Dombus’ depredations proves successful, serious danger exists that the rest of the people will take the matter into their own hands and, as the Dombus in the Agency number over 50,000, this would mean real trouble.” It is further recorded57that the Paidis (Paidi Mālas), who often commit dacoities on the roads, “are connected with the Dombus of the Rāyagada and Gunupur tāluks, who are even worse. These people dacoit houses at night in armed gangs of fifty or more, with their faces blacked to prevent recognition. Terrifying the villagers into staying quiet in their huts, they force their way into the house of some wealthy person (for choice the local Sondi, liquor-seller and sowcar,58usually the only man worth looting in an agency village, and a shark who gets little pity from hisneighbours when forced to disgorge), tie up the men, rape the women, and go off with everything of value. Their favourite method of extracting information regarding concealed property is to sprinkle the houseowner with boiling oil.”
Dommara.—The Dommaras are a tribe of tumblers, athletes, and mountebanks, some of whom wander about the country, while others have settled down as agricultural labourers, or make combs out of the wood ofElæodendron glaucum,Ixora parviflora,Pavetta indica,Ficus bengalensis, etc., which they sell to wholesale merchants. They are, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes,59“a nomad class of acrobats, who, in many respects, recall the gipsies to mind, and raise the suggestion that their name may possibly be connected with the Dōms of Northern India. They speak Telugu, Marāthi, and Hindustani, but not generally Tamil. They are skilful jugglers, and both men and women are very clever tumblers and tight-rope dancers, exhibiting their feats as they travel about the country. Some of them sell date mats and baskets, some trade in pigs, while others, settled in villages, cultivate lands. In social position they rank just above the Pariahs and Mādigas. They profess to be Vaishnavites [and Saivites]. Infant marriage is not practiced. Widow remarriage is freely allowed, and polygamy is common. Their marriage tie is very loose, and their women often practice prostitution. They are a predatory class, great drunkards, and of most dissolute habits. The dead are generally buried, and [on the day of the final death ceremonies] cooked rice is thrown out to be eaten by crows. In the matter of food, they eat all sorts of animals, including pigs, cats, andcrows.” When a friend was engaged in making experiments in connection with snake venom, some Dommaras asked for permission to unbury the corpses of snakes and mungooses for the purpose of food.
Ārē Dommara acrobat.Ārē Dommara acrobat.
Ārē Dommara acrobat.
The Dommaras are, in the Mysore Census Report, 1901, summed up as being buffoons, tumblers, acrobats, and snakecharmers, who travel from place to place, and earn a precarious living by their exhibitions. In the Madras Census Report, 1901, Domban, Kalaikūttādi (pole-dancer), and Ārya Kūttādi, are given as synonyms of Dommara. The Kūttādi are summed up, in the Tanjore Manual, as vagabond dancers, actors, pantomimists, and marionette exhibitors, who hold a very low position in the social scale, and always perform in public streets and bazaars.
By Mr. F. S. Mullaly60the Dommaras are divided into Reddi or Kāpu (i.e., cultivators) and Āray (Marātha). “The women,” he writes, “are proficient in making combs of horn and wood, and implements used by weavers. These they hawk about from place to place, to supplement the profits they derive from their exhibitions of gymnastic feats. In addition to performing conjuring tricks, rope-dancing and the like, the Dommaras hunt, fish, make mats, and rear donkeys and pigs. The head of the tribe is called the Mutli Guru. He is their high priest, and exercises supreme jurisdiction over them both in spiritual and temporal matters. His head-quarters is Chitvēl in the Cuddapah district. The legend regarding the office of the Mutli Guru is as follows. At Chitvēl, or as it was then known Mutli, there once lived a king, who called together a gathering of all the gymnasts among his subjects. Several classes were represented.Pōlērigādu, a Reddi Dommara, so pleased the king that he was presented with a ring, and a royal edict was passed that the wearer of the ring and his descendants should be the head of the Dommara class. The ring then given is said to be the same that is now worn by the head of the tribe at Chitvēl, which bears an inscription in Telugu declaring that the wearer is the high-priest or guru of all the Dommaras. The office is hereditary. The dwellings of the Dommaras are somewhat similar to those of the Koravars and Joghis, made of palmyra leaves plaited into mats with seven strands. These huts, or gudisays, are located on the outskirts of villages, and carried on the backs of donkeys when on the march. Stolen cloths, unless of value, are not as a rule sold, but concealed in the packs of their donkeys, and after a time worn. The Dommaras are addicted to dacoity, robbery, burglary, and thefts. The instrument used by them is unlike those used by other criminal classes: it is of iron, about a foot long, and with a chisel-shaped point. As cattle and sheep lifters they are expert, and they have their regular receivers at most of the cattle fairs throughout the Presidency.”
It is noted, in the Nellore Manual, that the Dommaras “are stated by the Nellore Tahsildar to possess mirāsi rights in some villages; that I take to mean that there is, in some villages, a customary contribution for tumblers and mendicants, which, according to Wilson, was made in Mysore the pretext for a tax named Dombar-lingada-vira-kaniki. This tax, under the name Dombar tafrik, was levied in Venkatagiri in 1801.” In the Madura district, Dommaras are found in some villages formerly owned by zamindars, and they call themselves children of the zamindars, by whom they were probably patronised.
Being a criminal class, the Dommaras have a thief’s language of their own, of which the following are examples:—
The Dommaras are said to receive into their community children of other castes, and women of doubtful morals, and to practice the custom of making Basavis (dedicated prostitutes).
The Telugu Dommaras give as their gōtra Salava patchi, the name of a mythological bird. At times of marriage, they substitute a turmeric-dyed string consisting of 101 threads, called bondhu, for the golden tāli or bottu. The marriage ceremonies of the Ārē Dommaras are supervised by an old Basavi woman, and the golden marriage badge is tied round the bride’s neck by a Basavi.
Ārē Dommara acrobat.Ārē Dommara acrobat.
Ārē Dommara acrobat.
A Dommara, whom I interviewed at Coimbatore, carried a cotton bag containing a miscellaneous assortment of rubbish used in his capacity as medicine man and snake-charmer, which included a collection of spurious jackal horns (nari kompu), the hairs round which were stained with turmeric. To prove the genuineness thereof, he showed me not only the horn, but also the feet with nails complete, as evidence that the horns were not made from the nails. Being charged with manufacturing the horns, he swore, by placing his hand on the head of a child who accompanied him, that he was not deceiving me. The largest of the horns in his bag, he gravely informed me, was from a jackal which he dug out of its hole on the last new moon night. The possessors of such horns, he assured me, do not go out with thepack, and rarely leave their holes except to feed on dew, field rats, etc. These spurious horns are regarded as a talisman, and it is believed that he who owns one can command the realisation of every wish. (SeeKuruvikkāran.) An iron ring, which the Dommara was wearing on his wrist, was used as a cure for hernia, being heated and applied as a branding agent over the inguinal region. Lamp oil is then rubbed over the burn, and a secret medicine, mixed with fowl’s egg, administered. The ring was, he said, an ancestral heir-loom, and as such highly prized. To cure rheumatism in the big joints, he resorted to an ingenious form of dry cupping. A small incision is made with a piece of broken glass over the affected part, and the skin damped with water. The distal end of a cow’s horn, of which the tip has been removed, and plugged with wax, does duty for the cup. A hole is pierced through the wax with an iron needle, and, the horn being placed over the seat of disease, the air is withdrawn from it by suction with the mouth, and the hole in the wax stopped up. As the air is removed from the cavity of the horn, the skin rises up within it. To remove the horn, it is only necessary to readmit air by once more boring a hole through the wax. In a bad case, as many as three horns may be applied to the affected part. The Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford possesses dry-cupping apparatus, made of cow horn, from Mirzapur in Northern India and from Natal, and of antelope horn from an unrecorded locality in India. In cases of scorpion sting the Dommara rubbed up patent boluses with human milk or milk of the milk-hedge plant (Euphorbia Tirucalli), and applied them to the part. For chest pains he prescribed red ochre, and for infantile diseases myrabolam (Terminalia) fruits mixed with water. In cases ofsnake-bite, a black stone, said to be made of various drugs mixed together, and burnt, is placed over the seat of the bite, and will, it was stated, drop off of its own accord as soon as it has absorbed all the poison. It is then put into milk or water to extract the poison, and the fluid is thrown away as being dangerous to life if swallowed. As a remedy for the bite of a mad dog, a plant, which is kept a secret, is mixed with the milk of a white goat, pepper, garlic, and other ingredients, and administered internally. A single dose is said to effect a cure.
At Tarikēri in Mysore, a wandering troupe of Ārē (Marātha) Dommaras performed before me. The women were decorated with jewels and flowers, and carried bells on their ankles. The men had a row of bells attached all round the lower edge of their short drawers. Before the performance commenced, a Pillayar (Ganēsa) was made with cowdung, and saluted. The entertainment took place in the open air amid the beating of drums, whistling, singing, and dialogue. The jests and antics of the equivalent of the circus clown were a source of much joy to the throng of villagers who collected to witness the tamāsha (spectacle). One of the principal performers, in the waits between his turns, played the drum, or took a suck at a hooka (tobacco pipe) which was passed round among the members of the troupe. The entertainment, in which both men and women took part, consisted of various acrobatic feats, turning summersaults and catherine wheels, stilt-walking, and clever feats on the tight rope. Finally a man, climbing up a lofty bamboo pole, spun himself rapidly round and round on the top of it by means of a socket in an iron plate tied to his loin cloth, into which a spike in the pole fitted.
Dondia.—A title of Gaudo.
Donga Dāsari.—Dāsari (servant of the god), Mr. Francis writes,61“in the strict sense of the word, is a religious mendicant of the Vaishnavite sect, who has formally devoted himself to an existence as such, and been formally included in the mendicant brotherhood by being branded on the shoulders with Vaishnavite symbols.” Far different are the Donga, or thief Dāsaris, who receive their name from the fact that “the men and women disguise themselves as Dāsaris, with perpendicular Vaishnava marks on their foreheads, and, carrying a lamp (Garuda kambum), a gong of bell-metal, a small drum called jagata, and a tuft of peacock feathers, go begging in the villages, and are at times treated with the sumptuous meals, including cakes offered to them as the disciples of Venkatēsvarlu.62”
In an interesting article on the Donga Dāsaris, Mr. S. M. Natesa Sastri writes as follows.63“Quite opposed to the gudi (temple) Dāsaris are Donga Dāsaris. They are the most dreaded of the criminal classes in the Bellary district. In the early years of their settlement in Bellary, these Donga Dāsaris were said to have practiced kidnapping boys and girls of other castes to strengthen their number, and even now, as the practice stands, any person can become a Donga Dāsari though very few would like to become one. But, for all that, the chief castes who furnished members to this brotherhood of robbery were the scum of the Lingayats and the Kabbēras. Of course, none of the respectable members of these castes would join them, and only those who were excommunicated found a ready home among theseDonga Dāsaris. Sometimes Muhammadan budmāshes (bad-māsh, evil means of livelihood) and the worst characters from other castes, also become Donga Dāsaris. The way an alien is made a Donga Dāsari is as follows. The regular Donga Dāsaris take the party who wants to enter their brotherhood to the side of a river, make him bathe in oil, give him a new cloth, hold a council, and give a feast. They burn a twig of the sami (Prosopis spicigera) or margosa (Melia Azadirachta) tree, and slightly burn the tongue of the party who has joined them. This is the way of purification and acceptance of every new member, who, soon after the tongue-burning ceremony, is given a seat in the general company, and made to partake of the common feast. The Donga Dāsaris talk both Telugu and Kanarese. They have only two bedagas or family names, called Sunna Akki (thin rice) and Ghantelavāru (men of the bell). As the latter is a family name of the Kabbēras, it is an evidence that members of the latter community have joined the Donga Dāsaris. Even now Donga Dāsaris intermarry with Kabbēras,i.e., they accept any girl from a Kabbēra family in marriage to one of their sons, but do not give one of their daughters in marriage to a Kabbēra boy. Hanumān is their chief god. Venkatēsa, an incarnation of Vishnu, is also worshipped by many. But, in every one of their villages, they have a temple dedicated to their village goddess Huligavva or Ellamma, and it is only before these goddesses that they sacrifice sheep or fowls. Vows are undertaken for these village goddesses when children fall ill. In addition to this, these Donga Dāsaris are notorious for taking vows before starting on a thieving expedition, and the way these ceremonies are gone through is as follows. The gang, before starting on athieving expedition, proceed to a jungle near their village in the early part of the night, worship their favourite goddesses Huligavva or Ellamma, and sacrifice a sheep or fowl before her. They place one of their turbans on the head of the sheep or fowl that was sacrificed, as soon as the head falls on the ground. If the turban turns to the right, it is considered a good sign, the goddess having permitted them to proceed on the expedition; if to the left, they return home that night. Hanumān is also consulted in such expeditions, and the way in which it is done is as follows. They go to a Hanumān temple which is near their village, and, after worshipping him, garland him with a wreath of flowers. The garland hangs on both sides of the neck. If any flowers on the right side drop down first, it is considered as a permission granted by the god to start on plundering expeditions, and, conversely, these expeditions are never undertaken if any flowers happen to drop from the left side first. The Donga Dāsaris start on their thieving raids with their whole family, wife and children following. They are the great experts in house-breaking and theft, and children are taught thieving by their mothers when they are five or six years old. The mother takes her boy or girl to the nearest market, and shows the child some cloth or vessel, and asks it to bring it away. When it fails, it is thrashed, and, when stroke upon stroke falls upon its back, the only reply it is taught to give is that it knows nothing. This is considered to be the reply which the child, when it grows up to be a man or woman, has to give to the police authorities when it is caught in some crime and thrashed by them to confess. Whenever the Donga Dāsaris are caught by the police, they give false names and false castes. They have a cipher language among themselves. The DongaDāsari woman is very loose, but, if she go astray with a Brāhman, Lingayat, Kabbēra, Kuruba, Upparava, or Rājput, her tongue is burnt, and she is taken back into the community. Widow remarriage freely prevails. They avoid eating beef and pork, but have no objection to other kinds of flesh.”
Donga Oddē.—The name for Oddēs who practice thieving as a profession.
Dongayato.—A sub-division of Gaudo.
Dongrudiya.—A sub-division of Māli.
Dora.—Dora, meaning lord, has been returned as the title of numerous classes, which include Bōya, Ekāri, Jātāpu, Konda Dora, Mutrācha, Patra, Telaga, Velama, and Yānāti. The hill Kois or Koyis of the Godāvari district are known as Koi Dora or Doralu (lords). I am told that, in some parts of the Telugu country, if one hears a native referred to as Dora, he will generally turn out to be a Velama; and that there is the following gradation in the social scale:—
In Southern India, Dorai or Durai (Master) is the equivalent of the northern Sāhib, and Dorasāni (Mistress) of Memsāhib.
It is noted by Sir A. J. Arbuthnot64that “the appellation by which Sir Thomas Munro was most commonly known in the Ceded districts was that of Colonel Dora. And to this day it is considered a sufficient answer to enquiries regarding the reason for any Revenue Rule, that it was laid down by the Colonel Dora.”
Dorabidda, or children of chiefs, is the name by which Bōyas, who claim to be descended from Poligars (feudal chiefs) call themselves.
Drāvida.—A sub-division of Kamsala. South Indian Brāhmans are called Drāvidas.
Dūbaduba.—Recorded, at times of census, as an Oriya form of Budubudukala.
Duddu(money).—An exogamous sept of Māla.
Dūdēkula.—The Dūdēkulas are described by Mr. H. A. Stuart65as “Muhammadans who have taken to the trade of cotton-cleaning (dūde, cotton; ekula, to clean). By the Tamils they are called Panjāri or Panjukotti, which have the same significance. Though Muhammadans, they have adopted or retained many of the customs of the Hindus around them, tying a tāli to the bride at marriage, being very ignorant of the Muhammadan religion, and even joining in Hindu worship as far as allowable. Circumcision is, however, invariable, and they are much given to the worship of Muhammadan saints. In dress they resemble the Hindus, and often shave off the beard, but do not leave a single lock of hair upon the head, as most Hindus do. Over three hundred Hindus have returned their caste as either Dūdēkula or Panjāri, but these are probably members of other castes, who call themselves Dūdēkula as they are engaged in cotton-cleaning.”
The Dūdēkulas are described by Mr. W. Francis66as “a Muhammadan caste of cotton-cleaners, and rope and tape-makers. They are either converts to Islām, or the progeny of unions between Musalmans and the women of the country. Consequently they generally speak the Dravidian languages—either Canarese or Telugu—butsome of them speak Hindustāni also. Their customs are a mixture of those of the Musalmans and the Hindus. Inheritance is apparently according to Muhammadan law. They pray in mosques, and circumcise their boys, and yet some of them observe the Hindu festivals. They worship their tools at Bakrid and not at the Dasara; they raise the azān or Muhammadan call to prayers at sunset, and they pray at the tombs of Musalman saints.” In the Vizagapatam district, the Dūdēkulas are described as beating cotton, and blowing horns.
For the following note on the Dūdēkulas of the Ceded Districts, I am indebted to Mr. Haji Khaja Hussain. They claim Bava Faqrud-dīn Pīr of Penukonda in the Anantapur district as their patron saint. Large numbers of Muhammadans, including Dūdēkulas, collect at the annual festival (mēla) at his shrine, and offer their homage in the shape of a fatiha. This, meaning opener, is the name of the first chapter of the Korān, which is repeated when prayers are offered for the souls of the departed. For this ceremony a pilau, made of flesh, rice and ghī (clarified butter) is prepared, and the Khāzi repeats the chapter, and offers the food to the soul of the deceased saint or relation.
The story of Faqrud-dīn Pīr is as follows. He was born in A.H. 564 (about A.D. 1122), and was King of Seistan in Persia. One day, while he was administering justice, a merchant brought some horses before him for sale. His attention was diverted, and he became for a time absorbed in contemplation of the beauty of one of the horses. Awakening from his reverie, he blamed himself for allowing his thoughts to wander when he was engaged in the most sacred of his duties as a king. He summoned a meeting of all the learned moulvis in his kingdom, and enquired of them what was the penaltyfor his conduct. They unanimously decreed that he should abdicate. Accordingly he placed his brother on the throne, and, becoming a dervish, came to India, and wandered about in the jungles. Eventually he arrived at Trichinopoly, and there met the celebrated saint Tabri-Ālam, whose disciple he became. After his admission into holy orders, he was told to travel about, and plant his miswāk wherever he halted, and regard the place where it sprouted as his permanent residence. The miswāk, or tooth-brush, is a piece of the root of the pīlū tree (Salvadora persica), which is used by Muhammadans, and especially Fakirs, for cleaning the teeth. When Bava Faqrud-dīn arrived at Penukonda hill, he, as usual, planted the miswāk, which sprouted. He accordingly decided to make this spot his permanent abode. But there was close by an important Hindu temple, and the idea of a Muhammadan settling close to it enraged the Hindus, who asked him to leave. He not only refused to do so, but allowed his disciples, of whom a number had collected, to slaughter a sacred bull belonging to the temple. The Hindus accordingly decided to kill Faqrud-dīn and his disciples. The Rāja collected an armed force, and demanded the restoration of the bull. Faqrud-dīn ordered one of his disciples to bring before him the skin, head, feet and tail of the animal, which had been preserved. Striking the skin with his staff, he exclaimed “Rise, Oh! bull, at the command of God.” The animal immediately rose in a complete state of restoration, and would not leave the presence of his preserver. Alarmed at this miracle, the Hindus brandished their swords and spears, and were about to fall on the Muhammadans, when a dust-storm arose and blinded them. In their confusion, they began to slay each other, and left the spot in dismay. TheRāja then resolved to kill the Muhammadans by poisoning them. He prepared some cakes mixed with poison, and sent them to Faqrud-dīn for distribution among his disciples. The saint, though he knew that the cakes were poisoned, partook thereof of himself, as also did his disciples, without any evil effect. A few days afterwards, the Rāja was attacked with colic, and his case was given up by the court physicians as hopeless. As a last resort, he was taken before Faqrud-dīn, who offered him one of the poisoned cakes, which cured him. Falling at his feet, the Rāja begged for pardon, and offered the village of Penukonda to Faqrud-dīn as a jaghīr (annuity). This offer was declined, and the saint asked that the temple should be converted into a mosque. The Rāja granted this request, and it is said that large numbers of Hindus embraced the Muhammadan religion, and were the ancestors of the Dūdēkulas.
The Dūdēkulas, like the Hindus, like to possess some visible symbol for worship, and they enrol great personages who have died among the number of those at whose graves they worship. So essential is this grave worship that, if a place is without one, a grave is erected in the name of some saint. Such a thing has happened in recent times in Banganapalle. A Fakir, named Allā Bakhsh, died at Kurnool. A Dūdēkula of the Banganapalle State visited his grave, took away a lump of earth from the ground near it, and buried it in a village ten miles from Banganapalle. A shrine was erected over it in the name of the saint, and has become very famous for the miracles which are performed at it. An annual festival is held, which is attended by large numbers of Muhammadans and Dūdēkulas.
Some Dūdēkulas have names which, though at first sight they seem to be Hindu, are really Muhammadan.For example, Kambannah is a corruption of Kamal Sahib, and Sakali, which in Telugu means a washerman, seems to be an altered form of Sheik Āli. Though Dūdēkulas say that they are Muhammadans of the Sheik sect, the name Sheik is only occasionally used as a prefix,e.g., Sheik Hussain or Sheik Āli. Names of males are Hussain Sa, Fakir Sa, and Khāsim Sa. Sa is an abbreviated form of Sahib. One old Dūdēkula stated that the title Sahib was intended for pucka (genuine) Muhammadans, and that the Dūdēkulas could not lay claim to the title in its entirety. Instead of Sa, Bhai, meaning brother, is sometimes used as a suffix to the name,e.g., Ghudu Bhai. Ghudu, meaning ash-heap, is an opprobrious name given to children of those whose offspring have died young, in the hope of securing long life to them. The child is taken, immediately after birth, to an ash-heap, where some of the ashes are sprinkled over it. Some Dūdēkulas adopt the Hindu termination appa (father), anna (brother), or gadu,e.g., Pullanna, Nāganna, Yerkalappa, Hussaingadu, Hussainappa. Typical names of females are Roshammā, Jamalammā, and Madarammā. They have dropped the title Bibi or Bi, and adopted the Hindu title ammā (mother).
The ceremony of naming a child is generally performed on the sixth day after its birth. The choice of a name is entrusted to an elderly female member of the family. In some cases, the name of a deceased ancestor who lived to an advanced age is taken. If a child dies prematurely, there is a superstitious prejudice against its name, which is avoided by the family. Very frequently a father and son, and sometimes two or three brothers, have the same name. In such a case prefixes are added to their names as a means of distinguishing them,e.g., Pedda (big), Nadpi (middle), Chinna (little). Sometimestwo names are assumed by an individual, one a Hindu name for every day use, the other Muhammadan for ceremonial occasions.
The Dūdēkulas depend for the performance of their ceremonies largely on the Khāzi, by whom even the killing of a fowl for domestic purposes has to be carried out. The Dūdēkula, like other Muhammadans, is averse to taking animal life without due religious rites, and the zabh, or killing of an animal for food, is an important matter. One who is about to do so should first make vazu (ablution), by cleaning his teeth and washing his mouth, hands, face, forearms, head and feet. He should then face the west, and an assistant holds the animal to be slaughtered upside down, and facing west. Water is poured into its mouth, and the words Bismillā hi Allā hu Akbar uttered. The operator then cuts the throat, taking care that the jugular veins are divided. In remote villages, where a Khāzi is not available, the Dūdēkulas keep a sacrificial knife, which has been sanctified by the Khāzi repeating over it the same words from the Korān as are used when an animal is slaughtered.
The first words which a Muhammadan child should hear are those of the azān, or call to prayer, which are uttered in its ear immediately after birth. This ceremony is observed by those Dūdēkulas who live in towns or big villages, or can afford the services of a Khāzi. It is noted by Mr. Francis that the Dūdēkulas raise the azān at sunset. A few, who have been through a course of religious instruction at a Madrasa (school), may be able to do this. A Muhammadan is supposed to raise the azān five times daily, viz., before sunrise, between noon and 3P.M., between 4 and 6P.M., at sunset, and between 8P.M.and midnight.
At the naming of an infant on the sixth day, the Dūdēkulas do not, like other Muhammadans, perform the aguigā ceremony, which consists of shaving the child’s head, and sacrificing a he-goat. Children are circumcised before the tenth year. On such occasions the Muhammadans generally invite their friends, and distribute sweets and pān-supāri (betel leaf and areca nuts). The Dūdēkulas simply send for a barber, Hindu or Muhammadan, who performs the operation in the presence of a Khāzi, if one happens to be available. When a girl reaches puberty, the Dūdēkulas invite their friends to a feast. Other Muhammadans, on the contrary, keep the fact a secret.
At the betrothal ceremony, when sweets and pān-supāri are taken by the future bridegroom and his party to the house of the girl whom he seeks in marriage, the female members of both families, and the girl herself, are present. This fact shows the absence of the Muhammadan gōsha system among Dūdēkulas. A Muhammadan wedding lasts over five or six days, whereas the ceremonies are, among the Dūdēkulas, completed within twenty-four hours. On the night preceding the nikka day, a pilau is prepared, and a feast is held at the bridegroom’s house. On the following morning, when it is still dark, the bridegroom, accompanied by his relations, starts on horseback in procession, with beating of drums and letting off of fireworks. The procession arrives at the bride’s house before sunrise. The Khāzi is sent for, and the mahr is settled. This is a nominal gift settled on the wife before marriage by the bridegroom. On the death of a husband, a widow has priority of claim on his property to the promised amount of the mahr. Two male witnesses are sent to the bride, to obtain her assent to the union, and to the amount ofthe mahr. The Khāzi, being an orthodox Muhammadan, treats the Dūdēkula bride as strictly gōsha for the time being, and, therefore, selects two of her near relatives as witnesses. The lutcha (marriage badge), consisting of a single or double string of beads, is brought in a cup filled with sandal paste.
The Khāzi chants the marriage service, and sends the lutcha in to the bride with his blessing. It is tied round her neck by the female relations of the bridegroom, and the marriage rites are over.
The usual Muhammadan form of greeting among Muhammadans is the familiar “Peace be with you.” “And with you be peace.” When a Dūdēkula greets a Muhammadan, he simply bows, and, with members of his own community, uses a Telugu form of salutation,e.g., nīku mokkutāmu.
The Dūdēkulas, male and female, dress exactly like Hindus, but, as a rule, the men do not shave their beard.
Disputes, and social questions affecting the community, are settled by a Khāzi.
With the increase in cotton mills, and the decline of the indigenous hand-weaving industry, the demand for cotton-cleaning labour has diminished, and some Dūdēkulas have, of necessity, taken to agriculture. Land-owners are very scarce among them, but some are abkāri (liquor) contractors, village schoolmasters, and quack doctors. In the Ceded Districts, the cotton-cleaning industry is solely confined to the Dūdēkulas.
The synonyms of Dūdēkula, Ladaf and Nūrbāsh, recorded at times of census, are corruptions of Nad-dāf (a cotton dresser) and Nūrbāf (weaving).
Dūdi.—A title of Kurumos, who officiate as priests at the temples of village deities.
Dūdi(cotton)Balija.—A name for traders in cotton in the Telugu country, and an occupational sub-division of Kōmati.
Durga(fort).—A gōtra of Kurni.
Dūtan.—Recorded, in the Travancore Census Report, as a synonym of Āri.
Dyavana(tortoise).—An exogamous sept of Mogēr.