KORKU

KORKUList of Paragraphs1.Distribution and origin.2.Tribal legends.3.Tribal subdivisions.4.Marriage. Betrothal.5.The marriage ceremony.6.Religion.7.The Bhumka.8.Magical practices.9.Funeral rites.10.Appearance and social customs.11.Character.12.Inheritance.13.Occupation.14.Language.1. Distribution and origin.Korku.1—A Munda or a Kolarian tribe akin to the Korwas, with whom they have been identified in the India Census of 1901. They number about 150,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, and belong to the west of the Satpūra plateau, residing only in the Hoshangābād, Nimār, Betūl and Chhindwāra Districts. About 30,000 Korkus dwell in the Berār plain adjoining the Satpūras, and a few thousand belong to Bhopāl. The word Korku means simply ‘men’ or ‘tribesmen,’korubeing their term for a man andkūa plural termination. The tribe have a language of their own, which resembles that of the Kols of Chota Nāgpur. The language of the Korwas, another Munda tribe found in Chota Nāgpur, is also known as Korakū or Korkū, and one of their subcastes has the same name.2Some Korkus or Mowāsis are found in Chota Nāgpur, and Colonel Dalton considered them a branch of the Korwas. Another argument may be adduced from the sept names of the Korkuswhich are in many cases identical with those of the Kols and Korwas. There is little reason to doubt then that the Korkus are the same tribe as the Korwas, and both of these may be taken to be offshoots of the great Kol or Munda tribe. The Korkus have come much further west than their kinsmen, and between their residence on the Mahādeo or western Satpūra hills and the Korwas and Kols, there lies a large expanse mainly peopled by the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes, though with a considerable sprinkling of Kols in Mandla, Jubbulpore and Bilāspur. These latter may have immigrated in comparatively recent times, but the Kolis of Bombay may not improbably be another offshoot of the Kols, who with the Korkus came west at a period before the commencement of authentic history.3One of the largest subdivisions of the Korkus is termed Mowāsi, and this name is sometimes applied to the whole tribe, while the tract of country where they dwell was formerly known as the Mowās. Numerous derivations of this term have been given, and the one commonly accepted is that it signifies ‘The troubled country,’ and was applied to the hills at the time when bands of Koli or Korku freebooters, often led by dispossessed Rājpūt chieftains, harried the rich lowlands of Berār from their hill forts on the Satpūras, exacting from the Marāthas, with poetical justice, the payments known as ‘Tankha Mowāsi’ for the ransom of the settled and peaceful villages of the plains. The fact, however, that the Korkus found in Chota Nāgpur are also known as Mowāsi militates against this supposition, for if the name was applied only to the Korkus of the Satpūra plateau it would hardly have travelled as far east as Chota Nāgpur. Mr. Hislop derived it from the mahua tree. But at any rate Mowāsi meant a robber to Marātha ears, and the forests of Kalībhīt and Melghāt are known as the Mowās.Korkus of the Melghāt hillsKorkus of the Melghāt hills2. Tribal legends.According to their own traditions the Korkus like so many other early people were born from the soil. They state that Rāwan, the demon king of Ceylon, observed that the Vindhyan and Satpūra ranges were uninhabited and besought Mahādeo4to populate them. Mahādeo despatched his messenger, the crow Kāgeshwar, to find for him an ant-hillmade of red earth, and the crow discovered such an ant-hill between the Saolīgarh and Bhānwargarh ranges of Betūl. Mahādeo went to the place, and, taking a handful of red earth, made images in the form of a man and a woman, but immediately two fiery horses sent by Indra rose from the earth and trampled the images to dust. For two days Mahādeo persisted in his attempts, but as often as the images were made they were destroyed in a similar manner. But at length the god made an image of a dog and breathed into it the breath of life, and this dog kept off the horses of Indra. Mahādeo then made again his two images of a man and woman, and giving them human life, called them Mūla and Mūlai with the surname of Pothre, and these two became the ancestors of the Korku tribe. Mahādeo then created various plants for their use, themahul5from whose strong and fibrous leaves they could make aprons and head-coverings, the wild plantain whose leaves would afford other clothing, and the mahua, thechironji, thesewanandkullu6to provide them with food. Time went on and Mūla and Mūlai had children, and being dissatisfied with their condition as compared with that of their neighbours, besought Mahādeo to visit them once more. When he appeared Mūla asked the god to give him grain to eat such as he had heard of elsewhere on the earth. Mahādeo sent the crow Kāgeshwar to look for grain, and he found it stored in the house of a Māng named Japre who lived at some distance within the hills. Japre on hearing what was required besought the honour of a visit from the god himself. Mahādeo went, and Japre laid before him an offering of 12khandis7of grain, 12 goats and 12 buckets of water, and invited Mahādeo to eat and drink. The god was pleased with the offering and unwilling to reject it, but considered that he could not eat food defiled by the touch of the outcaste Māng, so Pārvati created the giant Bhīmsen and bade him eat up the food offered to Mahādeo. When Bhīmsen had finished the offering, however, it occurred to him that he also had been defiled by taking food from aMāng, and in revenge he destroyed Japre’s house and covered the site of it with débris and dirt. Japre then complained to Mahādeo of this sorry requital of his offering and prayed to have his house restored to him. Bhīmsen was ordered to do this, and agreed to comply on condition that Mūla should pay to him the same honour and worship as he accorded to Rāwan, the demon king. Mūla promised to do so, and Bhīmsen then sent the crow Kāgeshwar to the tank Daldal, bidding him bring thence the pig Buddu, who being brought was ordered to eat up all the dirt that covered Japre’s house. Buddu demurred except on condition that he also should be worshipped by Mūla and his descendants for ever. Mūla agreed to pay worship to him every third year, whereupon Buddu ate up all the dirt, and dying from the effects received the name of Mahābissum, under which he is worshipped to the present day. Mahādeo then took some seed from the Māng and planted it for Mūla’s use, and from it sprang the seven grains—kodon,kutki,gurgi,mandgi,barai,rālaanddhān8which the Korkus principally cultivate. It may be noticed that the story ingeniously accounts for and sheds as it were an orthodox sanction on the custom of the Korkus of worshipping the pig and the local demon Bhīmsen, who is placed on a sort of level with Rāwan, the opponent of Rāma. After recounting the above story Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “This legend given by the Korkus of their creation bears a curious analogy to our own belief as set forth in the Old Testament. They even give the tradition of a flood, in which a crow plays the part of Noah’s dove. There is a most curious similarity between their belief in this respect and that found in such distant and widely separated parts as Otaheite and Siberia. Remembering our own name ‘Adam,’ which I believe means in Hebrew ‘made of red earth,’ it is curious to observe the stress that is laid in the legend on the necessity for finding red earth for the making of man.” Another story told by the Korkus with the object of providing themselves with Rājpūt ancestry is to the effect that their forefathers dwelt in the city of Dhārānagar, the modern Dhār. It happened one day thatthey were out hunting and followed asāmbharstag, which fled on and on until it finally came to the Mahādeo or Pachmarhi hills and entered a cave. The hunters remained at the mouth waiting for the stag to come out, when a hermit appeared and gave them a handful of rice. This they at once cooked and ate as they were hungry from their long journey, and they found to their surprise that the rice sufficed for the whole party to eat their fill. The hermit then told them that he was the god Mahādeo, and had assumed the form of a stag in order to lead them to these hills, where they were to settle and worship him. They obeyed the command of the god, and a Korku zamīndār is still the hereditary guardian of Mahādeo’s shrine at Pachmarhi. This story has of course no historical value, and the Korkus have simply stolen the city of Dhārānagar for their ancestral home from their neighbours the Bhoyars and Panwārs. These castes relate similar stories, which may in their case be founded on fact.3. Tribal subdivisions.As is usual among the forest tribes the Korkus formerly had a subdivision called Rāj-Korkū, who were made up of landowning members of the caste and were admitted to rank among those from whom a Brāhman would take water, while in some cases a spurious Rājpūt ancestry was devised for them, as in the story given above. The remainder of the tribe were called Potharia, or those to whom a certain dirty habit is imputed. These main divisions have, however, become more or less obsolete, and have been supplanted by four subcastes with territorial names, Mowāsi, Bāwaria, Rūma and Bondoya. The meaning of the term Mowāsi has already been given, and this subcaste ranks as the highest, probably owing to the gentlemanly calling of armed robbery formerly practised by its members. The Bāwarias are the dwellers in the Bhānwargarh tract of Betūl, the Rūmas those who belong to Bāsim and Gangra in the Amraoti District, and the Bondoyas the residents of the Jītgarh and Pachmarhi tract. These last are also called Bhovadāya and Bhopa, and this name has been corrupted into Bopchi in the Wardha District, a few hundred Bondoya Korkus who live there being known as Bopchi and considered a distinct caste. Except among the Mowāsis, who usually marry intheir own subcaste, the rule of endogamy is not strictly observed. The above description refers to Betūl and Nimār, but in Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite says: “Four-fifths of the Korkus have been so affected by the spread of Brāhmanical influence as to have ceased to differ in any marked way from the Hindu element in the population, and the Korku has become so civilised as to have learnt to be ashamed of being a Korku.” Each subcaste has traditionally 36 exogamous septs, but the numbers have now increased. The sept names are generally taken from those of plants and animals. These were no doubt originally totemistic, but the Korkus now say that the names are derived from trees and other articles in or behind which the ancestors of each sept took refuge after being defeated in a great battle. Thus the ancestor of the Atkul sept hid in a gorge, that of the Bhūri Rāna sept behind a dove’s nest, that of the Dewda sept behind a rice plant, that of the Jāmbu sept behind ajāmuntree,9that of the Kāsada sept in the bed of a river, that of the Tākhar sept behind a cucumber plant, that of the Sakum sept behind a teak tree, and so on. Other names are Banku or a forest-dweller; Bhūrswa or Bhoyar, perhaps from the caste of that name; Basam or Baoria, the god of beehives; and Marskola or Mawāsi, which the Korkus take to mean a field flooded by rain. One sept has the name Killībhasam, and its ancestor is said to have eaten the flesh of a heifer half-devoured by a tiger and parched by a forest fire. In Hoshangābād the legend of the battle is not known, and among the names given by Mr. Crosthwaite are Akandi, the benighted one; Tandil, a rat; and Chuthar, the flying black-bug. In a few cases the names of septs are Hindi or Marāthi words, these perhaps affording a trace of the foundation of separate families by members of other castes. No totemistic usages are followed as a rule, but one curious instance may be given. One sept has the namelobo, which means a piece of cloth. But the wordloboalso signifies ‘to leak.’ If a person says a sentence containing the wordloboin either signification before a member of the sept while he is eating, he will throw away the food before him as if it were contaminated and prepare a meal afresh.Ten of the septs10consider the regular marriage of girls to be inauspicious, and the members of these simply give away their daughters without performing a ceremony.Korku women in full dressKorku women in full dress4. Marriage Betrothal.Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. The preliminaries to a marriage commence with thebāli-dūdnaor arrangement of the match. The boy’s father having selected a suitable bride for his son sends two elders of the caste to propose the match to her father, who as a matter of etiquette invariably declines it, swearing with great oaths that he will not allow his daughter to get married or that he will have a son-in-law who will serve for her. The messengers depart, but return again and again until the father’s obduracy is overcome, which may take from six months to two years, while from nine to twelve months is considered a respectable period. When his consent is finally obtained the residents of the girl’s village are called to hear it, and the compact is sealed with large potations of liquor. A ceremony of betrothal follows at which thedaijor dowry is arranged, this signifying among the Korkus the compensation to be paid to the girl’s father for the loss of her services. It is computed by a curious system of symbolic higgling. The women of the girl’s party take two plates and place on them two heaps containing respectively ten and fifty seeds of a sort used for reckoning. The ten seeds on the first plate represent five rupees for thepanchāyatand five cloths for the mother, brother, paternal aunt and paternal and maternal uncles of the girl. The heap of fifty seeds indicates that Rs. 50 must be paid to the girl’s father. When the plates are received by the boy’s party they take away forty-five of the seeds from the larger heap and return the plate, to indicate that they will only pay five rupees to the girl’s father. The women add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate again. The men then take away fifteen, thus advancing the bride-price to fifteen rupees. The women again add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate, and the men again take away twenty, and returning the remaining twenty which are taken as the sum agreed upon, in addition to the five cloths andfive rupees for thepanchāyat. The total amount paid averages about Rs. 60. Wealthy men sometimes refuse this payment or exchange a bride for a bridegroom. The dowry should be paid before the wedding, and in default of this the bridegroom’s father is made not a little uncomfortable at that festival. Should a betrothed girl die before marriage, the dowry does not abate and the parents of the girl have a right to stop her burial until it is paid. But if a father shows himself hard to please and refuses eligible offers, or if a daughter has fallen in love, as sometimes happens, she will leave her home quietly some morning and betake herself to the house of the man of her choice. If her young affections have not been engaged, she may select of her own accord a protector whose circumstances and position make him attractive, and preferably one whose mother is dead. Occasionally a girl will install herself in the house of a man who does not want her, and his position then is truly pitiable. He dare not turn her out as he would be punished by the caste for his want of gallantry, and his only course is to vacate his own house and leave her in possession. After a time his relations represent to her that the man she wants has gone on a journey and will not be back for a long time, and induce her to return to the paternal abode. But such a case is very rare.5. The marriage ceremony.The marriage ceremony resembles that of the Hindus but has one or two special features. After the customary cleaning of the house which should be performed on a Tuesday, the bridegroom is carried to the heap of stones which represents Mutua Deo, and there the Bhumka or priest invokes the various sylvan deities, offering to them the blood of chickens. Again when he is dressed for the wedding the boy is given a knife or dagger carrying a pierced lemon on the blade, and he and his parents and relatives proceed to aber11or wild plum tree. The boy and his parents sit at the foot of the tree and are tied to it with a thread, while the Bhumka again spills the blood of a fowl on the roots of the tree and invokes the sun and moon, whom the Korkus consider to be their ultimate ancestors. Theberfruit may perhaps be selected as symbolising the red orb of the settingsun. The party then dance round the tree. When the wedding procession is formed the following ceremony takes place: A blanket is spread in the yard of the house and the bridegroom and his elder brother’s wife are made to stand on it and embrace each other seven times. This may probably be a survival of the modified system of polyandry still practised by the Khonds, under which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder brother’s wife until their own marriage. The ceremony would then typify the cessation of this intercourse at the wedding of the boy. The procession must reach the bride’s village on a Monday, a Wednesday or a Friday, a breach of this rule entailing a fine of Rs. 8 on the boy’s father. On arrival at the bride’s village its progress is barred by a rope stretched across the road by the bride’s relatives, who must be given two pice each before it is removed. The bridegroom touches the marriage-shed with a bamboo fan. Next day the couple are seated in the shed and covered with a blanket on to which water is poured to symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. The groom ties a necklace of beads to the girl’s neck, and the couple are then lifted up by the relatives and carried three times round the yard of the house, while they throw yellow-coloured rice at each other. Their clothes are tied together and they proceed to make an offering to Mutua Deo. In Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite states, the marriage ceremony is presided over by the bridegroom’s aunt or other collateral female relative. The bride is hidden in her father’s house. The aunt then enters carrying the bridegroom and searches for the bride. When the bride is found the brother-in-law of the bridegroom takes her up, and bride and bridegroom are then seated under a sheet. The rings worn on the little finger of the right hand are exchanged under the sheet and the clothes of the couple are knotted together. Then follow thesapta padior seven steps round the post, and the ceremony concludes with a dance, a feast and an orgy of drunkenness. A priest takes no part in a Korku marriage ceremony, which is a purely social affair. If a man has only one daughter, or if he requires an assistant for his cultivation, he often makes his prospective son-in-law serve for his wife for a period varying from five to twelve years, the marriage beingthen celebrated at the father-in-law’s expense. If the boy runs away with the girl before the end of his service, his parents have to pay to the girl’s father five rupees for each year of the unexpired term. Marriage is usually adult, girls being wedded between the ages of ten and sixteen and boys at about twenty. Polygamy is freely practised by those who are well enough off to afford it, and instances are known of a man having as many as twelve wives living. A man must not marry his wife’s younger sister if she is the widow of a member of his own sept nor his elder brother’s widow if she is his wife’s elder sister. Widow-marriage is allowed, and divorce may be effected by a simple proclamation of the fact to thepanchāyatin a caste assembly.6. Religion.The Korkus consider themselves as Hindus, and are held to have a better claim to a place in the social structure of Hinduism than most of the other forest tribes, as they worship the sun and moon which are Hindu deities and also Mahādeo. In truth, however, their religion, like that of many low Hindu castes, is almost purely animistic. The sun and moon are their principal deities, the name for these luminaries in their language being Gomaj, which is also the term for god or a god. The head of each family offers a white she-goat and a white fowl to the sun every third year, and the Korkus stand with the face to the sun when beginning to sow, and perform other ceremonies with the face turned to the east. The moon has no special observances, but as she is a female deity she is probably considered to participate in those paid to the sun. These gods are, however, scarcely expected to interest themselves in the happenings of a Korku’s daily life, and the local godlings who are believed to regulate these are therefore propitiated with greater fervour. The three most important village deities are Dongar Deo, the god of the hills, who resides on the nearest hill outside the village and is worshipped at Dasahra with offerings of cocoanuts, limes, dates, vermilion and a goat; Mutua Deo, who is represented by a heap of stones within the village and receives a pig for a sacrifice, besides special oblations when disease and sickness are prevalent; and Māta, the goddess of smallpox, to whom cocoanuts and sweetmeats, but no animal sacrifices, are offered.7. The Bhumka.The priests of the Korkus are of two kinds—Parihārs and Bhumkas. The Parihār may be any man who is visited with the divine afflatus or selected as a mouthpiece by the deity; that is to say, a man of hysterical disposition or one subject to epileptic fits. He is more a prophet than a priest, and is consulted only on special occasions. Parihārs are also rare, but every village has its Bhumka, who performs the regular sacrifices to the village gods and the special ones entailed by disease or other calamities. On him devolves the dangerous duty of keeping tigers out of the boundaries. When a tiger visits the village the Bhumka repairs to Bāgh Deo12and makes an offering to the god, promising to repeat it for so many years on condition that the tiger does not appear for that time. The tiger on his part never fails to fulfil the contract thus silently made, for he is pre-eminently an honourable upright beast, not faithless and treacherous like the leopard whom no contract can bind. Some Bhumkas, however, masters of the most powerful spells, are not obliged to rely on the traditional honour of the tiger, but compel his attendance before Bāgh Deo; and such a Bhumka has been seen as a very Daniel among tigers muttering his incantations over two or three at a time as they crouched before him. Of one Bhumka in Kālibhīt it is related that he had a fine largesājtree, into which, when he uttered his spells, he would drive a nail, and on this the tiger came and ratified the compact with his enormous paw, with which he deeply scored the bark. In this way some have lost their lives, victims of misplaced confidence in their own powers.13If a man is sick and it is desired to ascertain what god or spirit of an ancestor has sent the malady, a handful of grain is waved over the sick man and then carried to the Bhumka. He makes a heap of it on the floor, and, sitting over it, swings a lighted lamp suspended by four strings from his fingers. He then repeats slowly the name of the village deities and the sick man’s ancestors, pausing between each, and the name at which the lamp stops swinging is that of the offended one. He then inquires in a similarmanner whether the propitiation shall be a pig, a chicken, a goat, a cocoanut and so on. The office of Bhumka is usually, but not necessarily, hereditary, and a new one is frequently chosen by lot, this being also done when a new village is founded. All the villagers then sit in a line before the shrine of Mutua Deo, to whom a black and a white chicken are offered. The Parihār, or, if none be available, the oldest man present, then sets apai14rolling before the line of men, and the person before whom it stops is marked out by this intervention of the deity as the new Bhumka. When a new village is to be founded a pai measure is filled with grain to a level with the brim, but with no head (this being known as amundior baldpai), and is placed before Mutua Deo in the evening and watched all night. In the morning the grain is poured out and again replaced in the measure; if it now fills this and also leaves enough for a head, and still more if it brims and runs over, it is a sign that the village will be very prosperous and that every cultivator’s granaries will run over in the same way. But it is an evil omen if the grain does not fill up to the level of the rim of the measure. The explanation of the difference in bulk may be that the grains increase or decrease slightly in size according as the atmosphere is moist or dry, or perhaps the Bhumka works the oracle. The Bhumka usually receives contributions in grain from all the houses in the village; but occasionally each cultivator gives him a day’s ploughing, a day’s weeding and a day’s wood-cutting free. The Bhumka is also employed in Hindu villages for the service of the village gods. But the belief in the powers of these deities is decaying, and with it the tribute paid to the Bhumka for securing their favour. Whereas formerly he received substantial contributions of grain on the same scale as a village menial, the cultivator will now often put him off with a basketful or even a handful, and say, ‘I cannot spare you any more, Bhumka; you must make all the gods content with that.’ In curing diseases the Parihār resorts to swindling tricks. He will tell the sick man that a sacrifice is necessary, asking for a goat if the patient can afford one. He will say itmust be of a particular colour, as all black, white or red, so that the sick man’s family may have much trouble in finding one, and they naturally think the sacrifice is more efficacious in proportion to the difficulty they experience in arranging for it. If they cannot afford a goat the Parihār tells them to sacrifice a cock, and requires one whose feathers curl backwards, as they occasionally do. If the family is very poor any chicken which has come out of the shell, so long as it has a beak, will do duty for a cock. If a man has a pain in his body the Parihār will suck the place and produce small pieces of bone from his mouth, stained with vermilion to imitate blood, and say that he has extracted them from the patient’s body. Perhaps the idea may be that the bones have been caused to enter his body and make him ill by the practice of magic. Formerly the Parihār had to prove his supernatural powers by whipping himself on the back with a rope into which the ends of nails were twisted, and to continue this ordeal for a period long enough to satisfy the villagers that he could not have borne it without some divine assistance. But this salutary custom has fallen into abeyance.8. Magical practices.The Korkus have the same belief in the efficacy of imitative and sympathetic magic as other primitive peoples.15Thus to injure an enemy, a clay image of him is made and pierced with a knife, in the belief that the real person will suffer in the same manner. If the clay can be taken from a place where his foot has made an impression in walking, or the image wrapped round with his hair, the charm is more efficacious. Or an image may be made with charcoal on some stolen portion of his apparel, and similarly wrapped in his hair; it is then burnt in the belief that the real person will be attacked by fever. Sometimes the image is buried in a place where it is likely that the victim will walk over it, when the same result is hoped for. In order to produce rain, a frog, as the animal delighting in the element of water, is caught and slung on a stick; the boys and girls then carry it from house to house and the householders pour water over it. If it is desired to stop rain a frog is caught and buried alive, this being done by a naked boy. Anotherdevice for producing rain is to yoke two naked women to a plough, who are then driven across a field like bullocks and goaded by a third naked woman. This device may possibly be intended to cause the gods to send rain, by showing how the natural order of the world is upset and reversed by the continued drought. In order to stop rain an unmarried youth collects water in a new earthen pot from the eaves and buries it below the hearth so that the water may disappear by evaporation and the rain may cease in the same manner. Another method is to send a man belonging to the Kāsada sept—Kāsadameaning slime—to bring a plough from the field and place it in his house. He also stops bathing or washing for the period for which a break in the rains is required, and the idea is perhaps that as the man whose name and nature are mud or slime is dry so the mud on the earth will dry up; and as the plough is dry, the ploughed fields which have been in contact with it will also become dry. In order to produce a quarrel the quills of a porcupine are smoked with the burnt parings of an enemy’s nails and deposited in the eaves of his house. And as the fretful porcupine raises his quills when angry with an enemy, these will have the effect of causing strife among the members of the household. If a person wishes to transfer his sickness to another, he obtains the latter’s cloth and draws on it with lamp-black two effigies, one upright and the other upside down. As soon as the owner puts on the cloth, he will fall a victim to the ailment of the person who drew the effigies. In order to obtain children the hair of a woman who has borne several is secured by a barren woman and buried below her bathing-stone, when the quality of fertility will be transferred to her from the owner of the hair. In order to facilitate child-birth a twisted thread is untwined before the eyes of the pregnant woman with the idea that the delivery will thus be made direct and easy; or she is given water to drink in which her husband’s left leg, a gun-barrel, a pestle, or a thunder-bolt has been washed; it being supposed that as each of these articles has the quality of direct and powerful propulsion, this quality will be conveyed to the woman and enable her to propel the child from her womb. The Korkus also trust largely to omens. It isinauspicious when starting out on some business to see a black-faced monkey or a hare passing either on the left or right, or a snake crossing in front. A person seeing any of these will usually return and postpone his business to a more favourable occasion. It is a bad omen for a hen to cackle or lay eggs at night. One sneeze is a bad omen, but two neutralise the effect and are favourable. An empty pot is a bad omen and a full one good. To break a pot when commencing any business is fatal, and shows that the work will come to naught. Thursdays and Fridays are favourable days for working, and Mondays and Tuesdays for propitiating one’s ancestors. Odd numbers are lucky. In order to lay to rest the spirit of a dead person, who it is feared may trouble the living, five pieces of bamboo are taken as representing the bones of the dead man, and these with five crab’s legs, five grains of rice and other articles are put into a basket and thrust into a crab’s hole under water. The occasion is made an excuse for much feasting and drinking, and the son or other representative who lays the spirit works himself up into a state of drunken excitement before he enters the water to search for a suitable hole. The fat of a tiger is considered to be an excellent medicine for rheumatism and sprains, and much store is set by it. The tiger’s tongue is also supposed to be a very powerful tonic or strengthening medicine for weakly children. It is cooked, pounded up, and a small quantity administered in milk or water. When a tiger has been killed the Gonds and Korkus will singe off his whiskers, as they think this will prevent the tiger’s spirit from haunting them. Another idea is that the whiskers if chopped up and mixed in the food of an enemy will poison him. They frequently object to touch a man who has been injured or mauled by a tiger, as they think that to do so would bring down the tiger’s vengeance on them. And in some places any Gond or Korku who touches a man mauled by a tiger is put temporarily out of caste and has to be purified and give a feast on readmission.9. Funeral rites.The dead are usually buried, two pice being first thrown into the grave to buy the site. The body is laid on its back, naked and with the head pointing to the south.The earth is mixed with briars and thorns while being filled in so as to keep off hyenas, and stones are placed over the grave. No fixed period of mourning is observed, but after the lapse of some days, the deceased’s family or relatives go to the burial-place, taking with them a piece of turmeric. This they cut into strips, and, placing them in a leaf-cup, pour water over them. As the water falls on the tomb, a god is called to witness that this day the dead man’s spirit has been sent to live with the ancestors. The pieces of turmeric are then tied in a cloth which, after receiving an oblation of fowl’s blood, is suspended from the main beam of the house, this being considered the dwelling-place of the departed. This ceremony, called Pitar Miloni, is the first rite for the admission of the deceased with the spirits of his ancestors, and is preliminary to the final ceremony of Sedoli which may be performed at any time between four months and fifteen years after the death. But until it is complete the spirit of the deceased has not been laid finally to rest and has the power of sending aches and pains to molest the bodies of its living relatives. Each sept has a place in which the Sedoli rites must be performed, and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he must return there to set his father’s spirit at rest and enable it to join the ancestral ghosts. When the Sedoli is to be performed an unblemished teak orsalai16tree is selected and wrapped round with a thread, while seven circuits of it are made and a bottle of liquor and two pice are offered as purchase money. It is then cut down and brought home, and from it a smooth stake calledmūndais fashioned, 24 to 30 inches high, and squared or pointed at the top, often being arrow-headed. On it are carved representations of the sun and moon, a spider and a human ear, and below these a figure representing the principal person in whose honour the stake is erected, on horseback with weapons in his hand. The proper method is to have onemūndafor each ancestor, but poor persons make one do for several and their figures are then carved below. But care must be taken that the total number of figures representing the dead does not exceed that of themembers of the family who have died during the period for which the Sedoli is performed. For in that case another person is likely to die for each extra figure. The little bags of turmeric representing the ancestors are then taken from the main beam of the house and carried with themūndato the burial-place. There a goat is sacrificed and these articles are besmeared with its blood, after which a feast is held accompanied by singing and dancing. Next day the party again go to the burial-place and plant themūndain it, placing two pice in the hole beneath it. They then proceed to the riverside, and, making a little ball from the flesh of the sacrificed animal, place it together with the bags of turmeric on a leaf platter, and throw the whole into the river saying, ‘Ancestors, find your home.’ If the ball sinks at once they consider that the ancestors have been successful, but if any delay takes place, they attribute it to the difficulty experienced by the ancestors in the selection of a home and throw in two pice to assist them. The pith of a bamboo may be substituted for turmeric to represent the bones. The dead are supposed to inhabit a village of their own similar to that in which they dwelt on earth and to lead there a colourless existence devoid alike of pleasure and of pain.10. Appearance and social customs.The following description of the Korkus is given by Major Forsyth in the Nimār Settlement Report of 1868–69, with the addition of some remarks made by other observers. The Korkus are well built and muscular. The average Korku has a round face, a nose rather wide but not flat like a negro’s, prominent cheek-bones, a scanty moustache and his head shaved after the Hindu fashion. They are slightly taller than the Gond, a shade darker and a good many shades dirtier. In the wilder parts one may come across some quite too awful Korkus, from whom an intervening space of fifty yards is an insufficient protection, though strange to say there are no less than six words in their language which mean ‘to wash’; one to wash the whole body, one the limbs, one for the face, one for the mouth, one for the hair and one for the clothes, besides a word for scouring the body with a stone and another word for bathing in a stream. Their habitations on the otherhand present quite a contrast to their individual want of cleanliness. They build their villages of a close bamboo wattle-work and with almost Swisslike neatness, a picturesque site being usually chosen, and the plan being one long street with a wide open roadway, or several such parallel with each other. The villages are kept remarkably clean, in striking contrast to the habitations of other aboriginal tribes. The average village contains about twenty huts, and it is the custom to bind these so closely together that forest fires often sweep through a whole village before a hut can be removed to check their course. The average hut is about fifteen feet square with a rather flat roof covered with loose grass over a layer of leaves and pressed down by outside poles. No nails are required as the posts are bound firmly together with bamboo or creeper fibre. The inmates generally sleep on the ground, and a few low stools carved from teak wood serve them for pillows. Every village has a few pigs and fowls running about, both of which are eaten after being sacrificed. The Korku is an adept in the crude process of distillation in which the only apparatus required consists of twogharasor earthen pots, a hollow bamboo, some mahua flowers, water and a fire. By this means the Korku manages to produce liquor upon which he can effectually get drunk. They are by no means particular about what they eat. Fowls, pork, fish, crabs and tortoise are all consumed, and beef and rats are eaten in some localities but not in others. The Rūma and Bondoya Korkus eat buffaloes, and the latter add monkeys to an already comprehensive dietary. The lowest caste with whom they are said to eat are Kolis. They do not eat with Gonds. Gonds, Māngs, Basors and a few other low castes take food from them and also, it is said, Bhīls. The Korkus will freely admit members of the higher castes into the community, and a woman incurs no social penalty for aliaisonwith a member of any caste from which a Korku can take food. But if she goes wrong with a low-caste man she is permanently expelled and a fine of Rs. 40 is exacted from the parents before they are readmitted to social intercourse. In the case of adultery with a member of the caste, if the husband does not wish to keep his wife, theoffending parties have a lock of hair cut off and give a dinner, and are then considered to be married. But if the husband does not turn his wife away, he, on his wife’s account, and the seducer must give a joint dinner to the caste. They have a tribal council orpanchāyatwhich inflicts the usual penalties for social offences, while in very serious cases, such as intercourse with a low caste, it causes the offender to be born again. He is placed inside a large earthen pot which is sealed up, and when taken out of this he is said to be born again from his mother’s womb. He is then buried in sand and comes out as a fresh incarnation from the earth, placed in a grass hut which is fired, and from within which he runs out as it is burning, immersed in water, and finally has a tuft cut from his scalp-lock and is fined two and a half rupees. The Korkus as a race are very poor, and a poor Korku manages to exist with even less clothing than a poor Gond. A loincloth of the scantiest and a wisp of turban coiled on the top of the head and leaving the centre of the skull uncovered form his complete costume for dry weather. Sometimes a large brass chain is worn in the turban or attached to the waist, and to it are suspended a flint and steel and a small dry gourd full of cotton—the implements for obtaining fire. It is also common to wear a large brass ring in one ear. A special habit of the Korku in Nimār, Major Forsyth states, is to carry a small bamboo flute behind the ear like a pen, from which he discourses a not unpleasant strain, chiefly when drunk or engaged in propitiating Bāgh Deo, Devi or any other dread power whom he reverences. The women as a rule wear only a dirty whitesāriand are loaded with cheap ornaments. Necklaces of beads are worn on the neck, covering the chest, while the arms and legs are weighed down with brass and iron.11. Character.Like most hill tribes the Korkus are remarkably honest and truthful, slow at calculation and very indignant at being cheated. They are very improvident and great drunkards, and it is the latter habit which has aggravated the obstacles to their improvement.12. Inheritance.The Korku law of inheritance differs somewhat from that of the Hindus. Among them a grandson does notinherit the property of his grandfather unless it is openly and clearly granted to him during the latter’s lifetime. A married son living separately from his father has no right of succession to the paternal property, but if he is unmarried, he receives half the share of a son who is living with his father. A daughter or a daughter’s son does not inherit the father’s property unless it is granted to either of them by a deed of gift. The sons and mother share equally.13. Occupation.The Korkus formerly lived principally by hunting, and practised the shifting cultivation in the forests which is now forbidden. Very few of them are landowners, but some large zamīndāri estates in Hoshangābād and Chhindwāra are held by Korku proprietors, who are protected by the prohibition of alienation. Though too improvident and lazy to be good cultivators, they are in great request as farmservants and ploughmen, being too honest to defraud their master of labour or material. A remarkable change has thus taken place from their former character of notorious robbers. They cultivate mainly in the hilly tracts and grow light grains, though some have colonised the waste lands of the upper Tapti valley in Nimār and raise good crops of wheat. They do not as a rule keep cattle other than the few oxen required for cultivating the soil and hauling out timber. Game of all kinds is caught by means of heavy log traps for the larger varieties such as sāmbhar, bear and spotted deer and even leopard; while hares, jungle-fowl and the smaller sort of game are caught under heavy stones held up by nicely adjusted strings. Occasionally, when in search of meat, a whole village will sally out into the forest. Theshikārihas generally a matchlock concealed in some hiding-place in the jungle, and once he is posted the others beat towards him and any animal that turns up is shot at. In the hot weather the water-hole and the bow and arrow play no small part in helping to fill the Korku larder. Another method of catching birds is to spread the pounded fruit of a certain parasitic airplant on a rock. A thick shining gum exudes which so entangles the feet of the smaller birds as to prevent their escape. Fish dams are built when the water subsides after the rains, and a cylindrical basket six or eight feet in length beingadjusted at the outlet, the fish are driven into this from above. During the hot season the fruit of theghetuis thrown into the pools, and this stupefies the fish and causes them to float on the surface of the water, where they are easily caught.14. Language.The Korkus have a language of their own which belongs to the Kolarian or Munda sub-family. Dr. Grierson says of it: “The Munda, sometimes called the Kolarian family, is probably the older branch of the Dravido-Munda languages. It exhibits the characteristics of an agglutinative language to an extraordinarily complete degree.” In the Central Provinces nearly 90 per cent of Korkus were returned as speaking their own language in 1911. Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “The language is in a state of decay and transition, and Hindi and Marāthi terms have crept into its vocabulary. But very few Gondi words have been adopted. A grammar of the Korku language by Drake has been printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta.”1This article is largely based on a monograph contributed by Mr. H. R. Crosthwaite, Assistant Commissioner, Hoshangābād, and contains also extracts from a monograph by Mr. Ganga Prasād Khatri, Forest Divisional Officer, Betūl, and from the description of the Korkus given by Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott in theHoshangābād Settlement Report(1867), and by Major Forsyth in theNimār Settlement Report(1868–69).2Risley’sTribes and Castes of Bengal, Appendix V.: Korwā.3See also art. Kol.4The local term for the god Siva.5Bauhinia Vahlii.6Bassia latifolia,Buchanania latifolia,Gmelina arboreaandSterculia urens.7Nearly 3½ tons.8Paspalum scrobiculatum,Panicum psilopodium,Coix Lachryma,Eleusine coracana,Saccharum officianarum,Setaria italica,Oryza sativa.9Eugenia jambolana.10Makyātotha, Jondhrātotha, Dharsīima, Changri, Lobo, Khambi, Dagde, Kullya, Bursūma and Killībhasam.11Zizyphus jujuba.12The tiger-god.13The above passage is taken from Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott’sHoshangābād Settlement Reportwritten in 1867. Since that time the belief in the magical powers of the Bhumka has somewhat declined.14A small measure for grain.15Most of the information in this paragraph is taken from Mr. Ganga Prasād Khatri’s Report.16Boswellia serrata.

KORKUList of Paragraphs1.Distribution and origin.2.Tribal legends.3.Tribal subdivisions.4.Marriage. Betrothal.5.The marriage ceremony.6.Religion.7.The Bhumka.8.Magical practices.9.Funeral rites.10.Appearance and social customs.11.Character.12.Inheritance.13.Occupation.14.Language.1. Distribution and origin.Korku.1—A Munda or a Kolarian tribe akin to the Korwas, with whom they have been identified in the India Census of 1901. They number about 150,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, and belong to the west of the Satpūra plateau, residing only in the Hoshangābād, Nimār, Betūl and Chhindwāra Districts. About 30,000 Korkus dwell in the Berār plain adjoining the Satpūras, and a few thousand belong to Bhopāl. The word Korku means simply ‘men’ or ‘tribesmen,’korubeing their term for a man andkūa plural termination. The tribe have a language of their own, which resembles that of the Kols of Chota Nāgpur. The language of the Korwas, another Munda tribe found in Chota Nāgpur, is also known as Korakū or Korkū, and one of their subcastes has the same name.2Some Korkus or Mowāsis are found in Chota Nāgpur, and Colonel Dalton considered them a branch of the Korwas. Another argument may be adduced from the sept names of the Korkuswhich are in many cases identical with those of the Kols and Korwas. There is little reason to doubt then that the Korkus are the same tribe as the Korwas, and both of these may be taken to be offshoots of the great Kol or Munda tribe. The Korkus have come much further west than their kinsmen, and between their residence on the Mahādeo or western Satpūra hills and the Korwas and Kols, there lies a large expanse mainly peopled by the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes, though with a considerable sprinkling of Kols in Mandla, Jubbulpore and Bilāspur. These latter may have immigrated in comparatively recent times, but the Kolis of Bombay may not improbably be another offshoot of the Kols, who with the Korkus came west at a period before the commencement of authentic history.3One of the largest subdivisions of the Korkus is termed Mowāsi, and this name is sometimes applied to the whole tribe, while the tract of country where they dwell was formerly known as the Mowās. Numerous derivations of this term have been given, and the one commonly accepted is that it signifies ‘The troubled country,’ and was applied to the hills at the time when bands of Koli or Korku freebooters, often led by dispossessed Rājpūt chieftains, harried the rich lowlands of Berār from their hill forts on the Satpūras, exacting from the Marāthas, with poetical justice, the payments known as ‘Tankha Mowāsi’ for the ransom of the settled and peaceful villages of the plains. The fact, however, that the Korkus found in Chota Nāgpur are also known as Mowāsi militates against this supposition, for if the name was applied only to the Korkus of the Satpūra plateau it would hardly have travelled as far east as Chota Nāgpur. Mr. Hislop derived it from the mahua tree. But at any rate Mowāsi meant a robber to Marātha ears, and the forests of Kalībhīt and Melghāt are known as the Mowās.Korkus of the Melghāt hillsKorkus of the Melghāt hills2. Tribal legends.According to their own traditions the Korkus like so many other early people were born from the soil. They state that Rāwan, the demon king of Ceylon, observed that the Vindhyan and Satpūra ranges were uninhabited and besought Mahādeo4to populate them. Mahādeo despatched his messenger, the crow Kāgeshwar, to find for him an ant-hillmade of red earth, and the crow discovered such an ant-hill between the Saolīgarh and Bhānwargarh ranges of Betūl. Mahādeo went to the place, and, taking a handful of red earth, made images in the form of a man and a woman, but immediately two fiery horses sent by Indra rose from the earth and trampled the images to dust. For two days Mahādeo persisted in his attempts, but as often as the images were made they were destroyed in a similar manner. But at length the god made an image of a dog and breathed into it the breath of life, and this dog kept off the horses of Indra. Mahādeo then made again his two images of a man and woman, and giving them human life, called them Mūla and Mūlai with the surname of Pothre, and these two became the ancestors of the Korku tribe. Mahādeo then created various plants for their use, themahul5from whose strong and fibrous leaves they could make aprons and head-coverings, the wild plantain whose leaves would afford other clothing, and the mahua, thechironji, thesewanandkullu6to provide them with food. Time went on and Mūla and Mūlai had children, and being dissatisfied with their condition as compared with that of their neighbours, besought Mahādeo to visit them once more. When he appeared Mūla asked the god to give him grain to eat such as he had heard of elsewhere on the earth. Mahādeo sent the crow Kāgeshwar to look for grain, and he found it stored in the house of a Māng named Japre who lived at some distance within the hills. Japre on hearing what was required besought the honour of a visit from the god himself. Mahādeo went, and Japre laid before him an offering of 12khandis7of grain, 12 goats and 12 buckets of water, and invited Mahādeo to eat and drink. The god was pleased with the offering and unwilling to reject it, but considered that he could not eat food defiled by the touch of the outcaste Māng, so Pārvati created the giant Bhīmsen and bade him eat up the food offered to Mahādeo. When Bhīmsen had finished the offering, however, it occurred to him that he also had been defiled by taking food from aMāng, and in revenge he destroyed Japre’s house and covered the site of it with débris and dirt. Japre then complained to Mahādeo of this sorry requital of his offering and prayed to have his house restored to him. Bhīmsen was ordered to do this, and agreed to comply on condition that Mūla should pay to him the same honour and worship as he accorded to Rāwan, the demon king. Mūla promised to do so, and Bhīmsen then sent the crow Kāgeshwar to the tank Daldal, bidding him bring thence the pig Buddu, who being brought was ordered to eat up all the dirt that covered Japre’s house. Buddu demurred except on condition that he also should be worshipped by Mūla and his descendants for ever. Mūla agreed to pay worship to him every third year, whereupon Buddu ate up all the dirt, and dying from the effects received the name of Mahābissum, under which he is worshipped to the present day. Mahādeo then took some seed from the Māng and planted it for Mūla’s use, and from it sprang the seven grains—kodon,kutki,gurgi,mandgi,barai,rālaanddhān8which the Korkus principally cultivate. It may be noticed that the story ingeniously accounts for and sheds as it were an orthodox sanction on the custom of the Korkus of worshipping the pig and the local demon Bhīmsen, who is placed on a sort of level with Rāwan, the opponent of Rāma. After recounting the above story Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “This legend given by the Korkus of their creation bears a curious analogy to our own belief as set forth in the Old Testament. They even give the tradition of a flood, in which a crow plays the part of Noah’s dove. There is a most curious similarity between their belief in this respect and that found in such distant and widely separated parts as Otaheite and Siberia. Remembering our own name ‘Adam,’ which I believe means in Hebrew ‘made of red earth,’ it is curious to observe the stress that is laid in the legend on the necessity for finding red earth for the making of man.” Another story told by the Korkus with the object of providing themselves with Rājpūt ancestry is to the effect that their forefathers dwelt in the city of Dhārānagar, the modern Dhār. It happened one day thatthey were out hunting and followed asāmbharstag, which fled on and on until it finally came to the Mahādeo or Pachmarhi hills and entered a cave. The hunters remained at the mouth waiting for the stag to come out, when a hermit appeared and gave them a handful of rice. This they at once cooked and ate as they were hungry from their long journey, and they found to their surprise that the rice sufficed for the whole party to eat their fill. The hermit then told them that he was the god Mahādeo, and had assumed the form of a stag in order to lead them to these hills, where they were to settle and worship him. They obeyed the command of the god, and a Korku zamīndār is still the hereditary guardian of Mahādeo’s shrine at Pachmarhi. This story has of course no historical value, and the Korkus have simply stolen the city of Dhārānagar for their ancestral home from their neighbours the Bhoyars and Panwārs. These castes relate similar stories, which may in their case be founded on fact.3. Tribal subdivisions.As is usual among the forest tribes the Korkus formerly had a subdivision called Rāj-Korkū, who were made up of landowning members of the caste and were admitted to rank among those from whom a Brāhman would take water, while in some cases a spurious Rājpūt ancestry was devised for them, as in the story given above. The remainder of the tribe were called Potharia, or those to whom a certain dirty habit is imputed. These main divisions have, however, become more or less obsolete, and have been supplanted by four subcastes with territorial names, Mowāsi, Bāwaria, Rūma and Bondoya. The meaning of the term Mowāsi has already been given, and this subcaste ranks as the highest, probably owing to the gentlemanly calling of armed robbery formerly practised by its members. The Bāwarias are the dwellers in the Bhānwargarh tract of Betūl, the Rūmas those who belong to Bāsim and Gangra in the Amraoti District, and the Bondoyas the residents of the Jītgarh and Pachmarhi tract. These last are also called Bhovadāya and Bhopa, and this name has been corrupted into Bopchi in the Wardha District, a few hundred Bondoya Korkus who live there being known as Bopchi and considered a distinct caste. Except among the Mowāsis, who usually marry intheir own subcaste, the rule of endogamy is not strictly observed. The above description refers to Betūl and Nimār, but in Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite says: “Four-fifths of the Korkus have been so affected by the spread of Brāhmanical influence as to have ceased to differ in any marked way from the Hindu element in the population, and the Korku has become so civilised as to have learnt to be ashamed of being a Korku.” Each subcaste has traditionally 36 exogamous septs, but the numbers have now increased. The sept names are generally taken from those of plants and animals. These were no doubt originally totemistic, but the Korkus now say that the names are derived from trees and other articles in or behind which the ancestors of each sept took refuge after being defeated in a great battle. Thus the ancestor of the Atkul sept hid in a gorge, that of the Bhūri Rāna sept behind a dove’s nest, that of the Dewda sept behind a rice plant, that of the Jāmbu sept behind ajāmuntree,9that of the Kāsada sept in the bed of a river, that of the Tākhar sept behind a cucumber plant, that of the Sakum sept behind a teak tree, and so on. Other names are Banku or a forest-dweller; Bhūrswa or Bhoyar, perhaps from the caste of that name; Basam or Baoria, the god of beehives; and Marskola or Mawāsi, which the Korkus take to mean a field flooded by rain. One sept has the name Killībhasam, and its ancestor is said to have eaten the flesh of a heifer half-devoured by a tiger and parched by a forest fire. In Hoshangābād the legend of the battle is not known, and among the names given by Mr. Crosthwaite are Akandi, the benighted one; Tandil, a rat; and Chuthar, the flying black-bug. In a few cases the names of septs are Hindi or Marāthi words, these perhaps affording a trace of the foundation of separate families by members of other castes. No totemistic usages are followed as a rule, but one curious instance may be given. One sept has the namelobo, which means a piece of cloth. But the wordloboalso signifies ‘to leak.’ If a person says a sentence containing the wordloboin either signification before a member of the sept while he is eating, he will throw away the food before him as if it were contaminated and prepare a meal afresh.Ten of the septs10consider the regular marriage of girls to be inauspicious, and the members of these simply give away their daughters without performing a ceremony.Korku women in full dressKorku women in full dress4. Marriage Betrothal.Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. The preliminaries to a marriage commence with thebāli-dūdnaor arrangement of the match. The boy’s father having selected a suitable bride for his son sends two elders of the caste to propose the match to her father, who as a matter of etiquette invariably declines it, swearing with great oaths that he will not allow his daughter to get married or that he will have a son-in-law who will serve for her. The messengers depart, but return again and again until the father’s obduracy is overcome, which may take from six months to two years, while from nine to twelve months is considered a respectable period. When his consent is finally obtained the residents of the girl’s village are called to hear it, and the compact is sealed with large potations of liquor. A ceremony of betrothal follows at which thedaijor dowry is arranged, this signifying among the Korkus the compensation to be paid to the girl’s father for the loss of her services. It is computed by a curious system of symbolic higgling. The women of the girl’s party take two plates and place on them two heaps containing respectively ten and fifty seeds of a sort used for reckoning. The ten seeds on the first plate represent five rupees for thepanchāyatand five cloths for the mother, brother, paternal aunt and paternal and maternal uncles of the girl. The heap of fifty seeds indicates that Rs. 50 must be paid to the girl’s father. When the plates are received by the boy’s party they take away forty-five of the seeds from the larger heap and return the plate, to indicate that they will only pay five rupees to the girl’s father. The women add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate again. The men then take away fifteen, thus advancing the bride-price to fifteen rupees. The women again add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate, and the men again take away twenty, and returning the remaining twenty which are taken as the sum agreed upon, in addition to the five cloths andfive rupees for thepanchāyat. The total amount paid averages about Rs. 60. Wealthy men sometimes refuse this payment or exchange a bride for a bridegroom. The dowry should be paid before the wedding, and in default of this the bridegroom’s father is made not a little uncomfortable at that festival. Should a betrothed girl die before marriage, the dowry does not abate and the parents of the girl have a right to stop her burial until it is paid. But if a father shows himself hard to please and refuses eligible offers, or if a daughter has fallen in love, as sometimes happens, she will leave her home quietly some morning and betake herself to the house of the man of her choice. If her young affections have not been engaged, she may select of her own accord a protector whose circumstances and position make him attractive, and preferably one whose mother is dead. Occasionally a girl will install herself in the house of a man who does not want her, and his position then is truly pitiable. He dare not turn her out as he would be punished by the caste for his want of gallantry, and his only course is to vacate his own house and leave her in possession. After a time his relations represent to her that the man she wants has gone on a journey and will not be back for a long time, and induce her to return to the paternal abode. But such a case is very rare.5. The marriage ceremony.The marriage ceremony resembles that of the Hindus but has one or two special features. After the customary cleaning of the house which should be performed on a Tuesday, the bridegroom is carried to the heap of stones which represents Mutua Deo, and there the Bhumka or priest invokes the various sylvan deities, offering to them the blood of chickens. Again when he is dressed for the wedding the boy is given a knife or dagger carrying a pierced lemon on the blade, and he and his parents and relatives proceed to aber11or wild plum tree. The boy and his parents sit at the foot of the tree and are tied to it with a thread, while the Bhumka again spills the blood of a fowl on the roots of the tree and invokes the sun and moon, whom the Korkus consider to be their ultimate ancestors. Theberfruit may perhaps be selected as symbolising the red orb of the settingsun. The party then dance round the tree. When the wedding procession is formed the following ceremony takes place: A blanket is spread in the yard of the house and the bridegroom and his elder brother’s wife are made to stand on it and embrace each other seven times. This may probably be a survival of the modified system of polyandry still practised by the Khonds, under which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder brother’s wife until their own marriage. The ceremony would then typify the cessation of this intercourse at the wedding of the boy. The procession must reach the bride’s village on a Monday, a Wednesday or a Friday, a breach of this rule entailing a fine of Rs. 8 on the boy’s father. On arrival at the bride’s village its progress is barred by a rope stretched across the road by the bride’s relatives, who must be given two pice each before it is removed. The bridegroom touches the marriage-shed with a bamboo fan. Next day the couple are seated in the shed and covered with a blanket on to which water is poured to symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. The groom ties a necklace of beads to the girl’s neck, and the couple are then lifted up by the relatives and carried three times round the yard of the house, while they throw yellow-coloured rice at each other. Their clothes are tied together and they proceed to make an offering to Mutua Deo. In Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite states, the marriage ceremony is presided over by the bridegroom’s aunt or other collateral female relative. The bride is hidden in her father’s house. The aunt then enters carrying the bridegroom and searches for the bride. When the bride is found the brother-in-law of the bridegroom takes her up, and bride and bridegroom are then seated under a sheet. The rings worn on the little finger of the right hand are exchanged under the sheet and the clothes of the couple are knotted together. Then follow thesapta padior seven steps round the post, and the ceremony concludes with a dance, a feast and an orgy of drunkenness. A priest takes no part in a Korku marriage ceremony, which is a purely social affair. If a man has only one daughter, or if he requires an assistant for his cultivation, he often makes his prospective son-in-law serve for his wife for a period varying from five to twelve years, the marriage beingthen celebrated at the father-in-law’s expense. If the boy runs away with the girl before the end of his service, his parents have to pay to the girl’s father five rupees for each year of the unexpired term. Marriage is usually adult, girls being wedded between the ages of ten and sixteen and boys at about twenty. Polygamy is freely practised by those who are well enough off to afford it, and instances are known of a man having as many as twelve wives living. A man must not marry his wife’s younger sister if she is the widow of a member of his own sept nor his elder brother’s widow if she is his wife’s elder sister. Widow-marriage is allowed, and divorce may be effected by a simple proclamation of the fact to thepanchāyatin a caste assembly.6. Religion.The Korkus consider themselves as Hindus, and are held to have a better claim to a place in the social structure of Hinduism than most of the other forest tribes, as they worship the sun and moon which are Hindu deities and also Mahādeo. In truth, however, their religion, like that of many low Hindu castes, is almost purely animistic. The sun and moon are their principal deities, the name for these luminaries in their language being Gomaj, which is also the term for god or a god. The head of each family offers a white she-goat and a white fowl to the sun every third year, and the Korkus stand with the face to the sun when beginning to sow, and perform other ceremonies with the face turned to the east. The moon has no special observances, but as she is a female deity she is probably considered to participate in those paid to the sun. These gods are, however, scarcely expected to interest themselves in the happenings of a Korku’s daily life, and the local godlings who are believed to regulate these are therefore propitiated with greater fervour. The three most important village deities are Dongar Deo, the god of the hills, who resides on the nearest hill outside the village and is worshipped at Dasahra with offerings of cocoanuts, limes, dates, vermilion and a goat; Mutua Deo, who is represented by a heap of stones within the village and receives a pig for a sacrifice, besides special oblations when disease and sickness are prevalent; and Māta, the goddess of smallpox, to whom cocoanuts and sweetmeats, but no animal sacrifices, are offered.7. The Bhumka.The priests of the Korkus are of two kinds—Parihārs and Bhumkas. The Parihār may be any man who is visited with the divine afflatus or selected as a mouthpiece by the deity; that is to say, a man of hysterical disposition or one subject to epileptic fits. He is more a prophet than a priest, and is consulted only on special occasions. Parihārs are also rare, but every village has its Bhumka, who performs the regular sacrifices to the village gods and the special ones entailed by disease or other calamities. On him devolves the dangerous duty of keeping tigers out of the boundaries. When a tiger visits the village the Bhumka repairs to Bāgh Deo12and makes an offering to the god, promising to repeat it for so many years on condition that the tiger does not appear for that time. The tiger on his part never fails to fulfil the contract thus silently made, for he is pre-eminently an honourable upright beast, not faithless and treacherous like the leopard whom no contract can bind. Some Bhumkas, however, masters of the most powerful spells, are not obliged to rely on the traditional honour of the tiger, but compel his attendance before Bāgh Deo; and such a Bhumka has been seen as a very Daniel among tigers muttering his incantations over two or three at a time as they crouched before him. Of one Bhumka in Kālibhīt it is related that he had a fine largesājtree, into which, when he uttered his spells, he would drive a nail, and on this the tiger came and ratified the compact with his enormous paw, with which he deeply scored the bark. In this way some have lost their lives, victims of misplaced confidence in their own powers.13If a man is sick and it is desired to ascertain what god or spirit of an ancestor has sent the malady, a handful of grain is waved over the sick man and then carried to the Bhumka. He makes a heap of it on the floor, and, sitting over it, swings a lighted lamp suspended by four strings from his fingers. He then repeats slowly the name of the village deities and the sick man’s ancestors, pausing between each, and the name at which the lamp stops swinging is that of the offended one. He then inquires in a similarmanner whether the propitiation shall be a pig, a chicken, a goat, a cocoanut and so on. The office of Bhumka is usually, but not necessarily, hereditary, and a new one is frequently chosen by lot, this being also done when a new village is founded. All the villagers then sit in a line before the shrine of Mutua Deo, to whom a black and a white chicken are offered. The Parihār, or, if none be available, the oldest man present, then sets apai14rolling before the line of men, and the person before whom it stops is marked out by this intervention of the deity as the new Bhumka. When a new village is to be founded a pai measure is filled with grain to a level with the brim, but with no head (this being known as amundior baldpai), and is placed before Mutua Deo in the evening and watched all night. In the morning the grain is poured out and again replaced in the measure; if it now fills this and also leaves enough for a head, and still more if it brims and runs over, it is a sign that the village will be very prosperous and that every cultivator’s granaries will run over in the same way. But it is an evil omen if the grain does not fill up to the level of the rim of the measure. The explanation of the difference in bulk may be that the grains increase or decrease slightly in size according as the atmosphere is moist or dry, or perhaps the Bhumka works the oracle. The Bhumka usually receives contributions in grain from all the houses in the village; but occasionally each cultivator gives him a day’s ploughing, a day’s weeding and a day’s wood-cutting free. The Bhumka is also employed in Hindu villages for the service of the village gods. But the belief in the powers of these deities is decaying, and with it the tribute paid to the Bhumka for securing their favour. Whereas formerly he received substantial contributions of grain on the same scale as a village menial, the cultivator will now often put him off with a basketful or even a handful, and say, ‘I cannot spare you any more, Bhumka; you must make all the gods content with that.’ In curing diseases the Parihār resorts to swindling tricks. He will tell the sick man that a sacrifice is necessary, asking for a goat if the patient can afford one. He will say itmust be of a particular colour, as all black, white or red, so that the sick man’s family may have much trouble in finding one, and they naturally think the sacrifice is more efficacious in proportion to the difficulty they experience in arranging for it. If they cannot afford a goat the Parihār tells them to sacrifice a cock, and requires one whose feathers curl backwards, as they occasionally do. If the family is very poor any chicken which has come out of the shell, so long as it has a beak, will do duty for a cock. If a man has a pain in his body the Parihār will suck the place and produce small pieces of bone from his mouth, stained with vermilion to imitate blood, and say that he has extracted them from the patient’s body. Perhaps the idea may be that the bones have been caused to enter his body and make him ill by the practice of magic. Formerly the Parihār had to prove his supernatural powers by whipping himself on the back with a rope into which the ends of nails were twisted, and to continue this ordeal for a period long enough to satisfy the villagers that he could not have borne it without some divine assistance. But this salutary custom has fallen into abeyance.8. Magical practices.The Korkus have the same belief in the efficacy of imitative and sympathetic magic as other primitive peoples.15Thus to injure an enemy, a clay image of him is made and pierced with a knife, in the belief that the real person will suffer in the same manner. If the clay can be taken from a place where his foot has made an impression in walking, or the image wrapped round with his hair, the charm is more efficacious. Or an image may be made with charcoal on some stolen portion of his apparel, and similarly wrapped in his hair; it is then burnt in the belief that the real person will be attacked by fever. Sometimes the image is buried in a place where it is likely that the victim will walk over it, when the same result is hoped for. In order to produce rain, a frog, as the animal delighting in the element of water, is caught and slung on a stick; the boys and girls then carry it from house to house and the householders pour water over it. If it is desired to stop rain a frog is caught and buried alive, this being done by a naked boy. Anotherdevice for producing rain is to yoke two naked women to a plough, who are then driven across a field like bullocks and goaded by a third naked woman. This device may possibly be intended to cause the gods to send rain, by showing how the natural order of the world is upset and reversed by the continued drought. In order to stop rain an unmarried youth collects water in a new earthen pot from the eaves and buries it below the hearth so that the water may disappear by evaporation and the rain may cease in the same manner. Another method is to send a man belonging to the Kāsada sept—Kāsadameaning slime—to bring a plough from the field and place it in his house. He also stops bathing or washing for the period for which a break in the rains is required, and the idea is perhaps that as the man whose name and nature are mud or slime is dry so the mud on the earth will dry up; and as the plough is dry, the ploughed fields which have been in contact with it will also become dry. In order to produce a quarrel the quills of a porcupine are smoked with the burnt parings of an enemy’s nails and deposited in the eaves of his house. And as the fretful porcupine raises his quills when angry with an enemy, these will have the effect of causing strife among the members of the household. If a person wishes to transfer his sickness to another, he obtains the latter’s cloth and draws on it with lamp-black two effigies, one upright and the other upside down. As soon as the owner puts on the cloth, he will fall a victim to the ailment of the person who drew the effigies. In order to obtain children the hair of a woman who has borne several is secured by a barren woman and buried below her bathing-stone, when the quality of fertility will be transferred to her from the owner of the hair. In order to facilitate child-birth a twisted thread is untwined before the eyes of the pregnant woman with the idea that the delivery will thus be made direct and easy; or she is given water to drink in which her husband’s left leg, a gun-barrel, a pestle, or a thunder-bolt has been washed; it being supposed that as each of these articles has the quality of direct and powerful propulsion, this quality will be conveyed to the woman and enable her to propel the child from her womb. The Korkus also trust largely to omens. It isinauspicious when starting out on some business to see a black-faced monkey or a hare passing either on the left or right, or a snake crossing in front. A person seeing any of these will usually return and postpone his business to a more favourable occasion. It is a bad omen for a hen to cackle or lay eggs at night. One sneeze is a bad omen, but two neutralise the effect and are favourable. An empty pot is a bad omen and a full one good. To break a pot when commencing any business is fatal, and shows that the work will come to naught. Thursdays and Fridays are favourable days for working, and Mondays and Tuesdays for propitiating one’s ancestors. Odd numbers are lucky. In order to lay to rest the spirit of a dead person, who it is feared may trouble the living, five pieces of bamboo are taken as representing the bones of the dead man, and these with five crab’s legs, five grains of rice and other articles are put into a basket and thrust into a crab’s hole under water. The occasion is made an excuse for much feasting and drinking, and the son or other representative who lays the spirit works himself up into a state of drunken excitement before he enters the water to search for a suitable hole. The fat of a tiger is considered to be an excellent medicine for rheumatism and sprains, and much store is set by it. The tiger’s tongue is also supposed to be a very powerful tonic or strengthening medicine for weakly children. It is cooked, pounded up, and a small quantity administered in milk or water. When a tiger has been killed the Gonds and Korkus will singe off his whiskers, as they think this will prevent the tiger’s spirit from haunting them. Another idea is that the whiskers if chopped up and mixed in the food of an enemy will poison him. They frequently object to touch a man who has been injured or mauled by a tiger, as they think that to do so would bring down the tiger’s vengeance on them. And in some places any Gond or Korku who touches a man mauled by a tiger is put temporarily out of caste and has to be purified and give a feast on readmission.9. Funeral rites.The dead are usually buried, two pice being first thrown into the grave to buy the site. The body is laid on its back, naked and with the head pointing to the south.The earth is mixed with briars and thorns while being filled in so as to keep off hyenas, and stones are placed over the grave. No fixed period of mourning is observed, but after the lapse of some days, the deceased’s family or relatives go to the burial-place, taking with them a piece of turmeric. This they cut into strips, and, placing them in a leaf-cup, pour water over them. As the water falls on the tomb, a god is called to witness that this day the dead man’s spirit has been sent to live with the ancestors. The pieces of turmeric are then tied in a cloth which, after receiving an oblation of fowl’s blood, is suspended from the main beam of the house, this being considered the dwelling-place of the departed. This ceremony, called Pitar Miloni, is the first rite for the admission of the deceased with the spirits of his ancestors, and is preliminary to the final ceremony of Sedoli which may be performed at any time between four months and fifteen years after the death. But until it is complete the spirit of the deceased has not been laid finally to rest and has the power of sending aches and pains to molest the bodies of its living relatives. Each sept has a place in which the Sedoli rites must be performed, and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he must return there to set his father’s spirit at rest and enable it to join the ancestral ghosts. When the Sedoli is to be performed an unblemished teak orsalai16tree is selected and wrapped round with a thread, while seven circuits of it are made and a bottle of liquor and two pice are offered as purchase money. It is then cut down and brought home, and from it a smooth stake calledmūndais fashioned, 24 to 30 inches high, and squared or pointed at the top, often being arrow-headed. On it are carved representations of the sun and moon, a spider and a human ear, and below these a figure representing the principal person in whose honour the stake is erected, on horseback with weapons in his hand. The proper method is to have onemūndafor each ancestor, but poor persons make one do for several and their figures are then carved below. But care must be taken that the total number of figures representing the dead does not exceed that of themembers of the family who have died during the period for which the Sedoli is performed. For in that case another person is likely to die for each extra figure. The little bags of turmeric representing the ancestors are then taken from the main beam of the house and carried with themūndato the burial-place. There a goat is sacrificed and these articles are besmeared with its blood, after which a feast is held accompanied by singing and dancing. Next day the party again go to the burial-place and plant themūndain it, placing two pice in the hole beneath it. They then proceed to the riverside, and, making a little ball from the flesh of the sacrificed animal, place it together with the bags of turmeric on a leaf platter, and throw the whole into the river saying, ‘Ancestors, find your home.’ If the ball sinks at once they consider that the ancestors have been successful, but if any delay takes place, they attribute it to the difficulty experienced by the ancestors in the selection of a home and throw in two pice to assist them. The pith of a bamboo may be substituted for turmeric to represent the bones. The dead are supposed to inhabit a village of their own similar to that in which they dwelt on earth and to lead there a colourless existence devoid alike of pleasure and of pain.10. Appearance and social customs.The following description of the Korkus is given by Major Forsyth in the Nimār Settlement Report of 1868–69, with the addition of some remarks made by other observers. The Korkus are well built and muscular. The average Korku has a round face, a nose rather wide but not flat like a negro’s, prominent cheek-bones, a scanty moustache and his head shaved after the Hindu fashion. They are slightly taller than the Gond, a shade darker and a good many shades dirtier. In the wilder parts one may come across some quite too awful Korkus, from whom an intervening space of fifty yards is an insufficient protection, though strange to say there are no less than six words in their language which mean ‘to wash’; one to wash the whole body, one the limbs, one for the face, one for the mouth, one for the hair and one for the clothes, besides a word for scouring the body with a stone and another word for bathing in a stream. Their habitations on the otherhand present quite a contrast to their individual want of cleanliness. They build their villages of a close bamboo wattle-work and with almost Swisslike neatness, a picturesque site being usually chosen, and the plan being one long street with a wide open roadway, or several such parallel with each other. The villages are kept remarkably clean, in striking contrast to the habitations of other aboriginal tribes. The average village contains about twenty huts, and it is the custom to bind these so closely together that forest fires often sweep through a whole village before a hut can be removed to check their course. The average hut is about fifteen feet square with a rather flat roof covered with loose grass over a layer of leaves and pressed down by outside poles. No nails are required as the posts are bound firmly together with bamboo or creeper fibre. The inmates generally sleep on the ground, and a few low stools carved from teak wood serve them for pillows. Every village has a few pigs and fowls running about, both of which are eaten after being sacrificed. The Korku is an adept in the crude process of distillation in which the only apparatus required consists of twogharasor earthen pots, a hollow bamboo, some mahua flowers, water and a fire. By this means the Korku manages to produce liquor upon which he can effectually get drunk. They are by no means particular about what they eat. Fowls, pork, fish, crabs and tortoise are all consumed, and beef and rats are eaten in some localities but not in others. The Rūma and Bondoya Korkus eat buffaloes, and the latter add monkeys to an already comprehensive dietary. The lowest caste with whom they are said to eat are Kolis. They do not eat with Gonds. Gonds, Māngs, Basors and a few other low castes take food from them and also, it is said, Bhīls. The Korkus will freely admit members of the higher castes into the community, and a woman incurs no social penalty for aliaisonwith a member of any caste from which a Korku can take food. But if she goes wrong with a low-caste man she is permanently expelled and a fine of Rs. 40 is exacted from the parents before they are readmitted to social intercourse. In the case of adultery with a member of the caste, if the husband does not wish to keep his wife, theoffending parties have a lock of hair cut off and give a dinner, and are then considered to be married. But if the husband does not turn his wife away, he, on his wife’s account, and the seducer must give a joint dinner to the caste. They have a tribal council orpanchāyatwhich inflicts the usual penalties for social offences, while in very serious cases, such as intercourse with a low caste, it causes the offender to be born again. He is placed inside a large earthen pot which is sealed up, and when taken out of this he is said to be born again from his mother’s womb. He is then buried in sand and comes out as a fresh incarnation from the earth, placed in a grass hut which is fired, and from within which he runs out as it is burning, immersed in water, and finally has a tuft cut from his scalp-lock and is fined two and a half rupees. The Korkus as a race are very poor, and a poor Korku manages to exist with even less clothing than a poor Gond. A loincloth of the scantiest and a wisp of turban coiled on the top of the head and leaving the centre of the skull uncovered form his complete costume for dry weather. Sometimes a large brass chain is worn in the turban or attached to the waist, and to it are suspended a flint and steel and a small dry gourd full of cotton—the implements for obtaining fire. It is also common to wear a large brass ring in one ear. A special habit of the Korku in Nimār, Major Forsyth states, is to carry a small bamboo flute behind the ear like a pen, from which he discourses a not unpleasant strain, chiefly when drunk or engaged in propitiating Bāgh Deo, Devi or any other dread power whom he reverences. The women as a rule wear only a dirty whitesāriand are loaded with cheap ornaments. Necklaces of beads are worn on the neck, covering the chest, while the arms and legs are weighed down with brass and iron.11. Character.Like most hill tribes the Korkus are remarkably honest and truthful, slow at calculation and very indignant at being cheated. They are very improvident and great drunkards, and it is the latter habit which has aggravated the obstacles to their improvement.12. Inheritance.The Korku law of inheritance differs somewhat from that of the Hindus. Among them a grandson does notinherit the property of his grandfather unless it is openly and clearly granted to him during the latter’s lifetime. A married son living separately from his father has no right of succession to the paternal property, but if he is unmarried, he receives half the share of a son who is living with his father. A daughter or a daughter’s son does not inherit the father’s property unless it is granted to either of them by a deed of gift. The sons and mother share equally.13. Occupation.The Korkus formerly lived principally by hunting, and practised the shifting cultivation in the forests which is now forbidden. Very few of them are landowners, but some large zamīndāri estates in Hoshangābād and Chhindwāra are held by Korku proprietors, who are protected by the prohibition of alienation. Though too improvident and lazy to be good cultivators, they are in great request as farmservants and ploughmen, being too honest to defraud their master of labour or material. A remarkable change has thus taken place from their former character of notorious robbers. They cultivate mainly in the hilly tracts and grow light grains, though some have colonised the waste lands of the upper Tapti valley in Nimār and raise good crops of wheat. They do not as a rule keep cattle other than the few oxen required for cultivating the soil and hauling out timber. Game of all kinds is caught by means of heavy log traps for the larger varieties such as sāmbhar, bear and spotted deer and even leopard; while hares, jungle-fowl and the smaller sort of game are caught under heavy stones held up by nicely adjusted strings. Occasionally, when in search of meat, a whole village will sally out into the forest. Theshikārihas generally a matchlock concealed in some hiding-place in the jungle, and once he is posted the others beat towards him and any animal that turns up is shot at. In the hot weather the water-hole and the bow and arrow play no small part in helping to fill the Korku larder. Another method of catching birds is to spread the pounded fruit of a certain parasitic airplant on a rock. A thick shining gum exudes which so entangles the feet of the smaller birds as to prevent their escape. Fish dams are built when the water subsides after the rains, and a cylindrical basket six or eight feet in length beingadjusted at the outlet, the fish are driven into this from above. During the hot season the fruit of theghetuis thrown into the pools, and this stupefies the fish and causes them to float on the surface of the water, where they are easily caught.14. Language.The Korkus have a language of their own which belongs to the Kolarian or Munda sub-family. Dr. Grierson says of it: “The Munda, sometimes called the Kolarian family, is probably the older branch of the Dravido-Munda languages. It exhibits the characteristics of an agglutinative language to an extraordinarily complete degree.” In the Central Provinces nearly 90 per cent of Korkus were returned as speaking their own language in 1911. Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “The language is in a state of decay and transition, and Hindi and Marāthi terms have crept into its vocabulary. But very few Gondi words have been adopted. A grammar of the Korku language by Drake has been printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta.”1This article is largely based on a monograph contributed by Mr. H. R. Crosthwaite, Assistant Commissioner, Hoshangābād, and contains also extracts from a monograph by Mr. Ganga Prasād Khatri, Forest Divisional Officer, Betūl, and from the description of the Korkus given by Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott in theHoshangābād Settlement Report(1867), and by Major Forsyth in theNimār Settlement Report(1868–69).2Risley’sTribes and Castes of Bengal, Appendix V.: Korwā.3See also art. Kol.4The local term for the god Siva.5Bauhinia Vahlii.6Bassia latifolia,Buchanania latifolia,Gmelina arboreaandSterculia urens.7Nearly 3½ tons.8Paspalum scrobiculatum,Panicum psilopodium,Coix Lachryma,Eleusine coracana,Saccharum officianarum,Setaria italica,Oryza sativa.9Eugenia jambolana.10Makyātotha, Jondhrātotha, Dharsīima, Changri, Lobo, Khambi, Dagde, Kullya, Bursūma and Killībhasam.11Zizyphus jujuba.12The tiger-god.13The above passage is taken from Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott’sHoshangābād Settlement Reportwritten in 1867. Since that time the belief in the magical powers of the Bhumka has somewhat declined.14A small measure for grain.15Most of the information in this paragraph is taken from Mr. Ganga Prasād Khatri’s Report.16Boswellia serrata.

KORKUList of Paragraphs1.Distribution and origin.2.Tribal legends.3.Tribal subdivisions.4.Marriage. Betrothal.5.The marriage ceremony.6.Religion.7.The Bhumka.8.Magical practices.9.Funeral rites.10.Appearance and social customs.11.Character.12.Inheritance.13.Occupation.14.Language.1. Distribution and origin.Korku.1—A Munda or a Kolarian tribe akin to the Korwas, with whom they have been identified in the India Census of 1901. They number about 150,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, and belong to the west of the Satpūra plateau, residing only in the Hoshangābād, Nimār, Betūl and Chhindwāra Districts. About 30,000 Korkus dwell in the Berār plain adjoining the Satpūras, and a few thousand belong to Bhopāl. The word Korku means simply ‘men’ or ‘tribesmen,’korubeing their term for a man andkūa plural termination. The tribe have a language of their own, which resembles that of the Kols of Chota Nāgpur. The language of the Korwas, another Munda tribe found in Chota Nāgpur, is also known as Korakū or Korkū, and one of their subcastes has the same name.2Some Korkus or Mowāsis are found in Chota Nāgpur, and Colonel Dalton considered them a branch of the Korwas. Another argument may be adduced from the sept names of the Korkuswhich are in many cases identical with those of the Kols and Korwas. There is little reason to doubt then that the Korkus are the same tribe as the Korwas, and both of these may be taken to be offshoots of the great Kol or Munda tribe. The Korkus have come much further west than their kinsmen, and between their residence on the Mahādeo or western Satpūra hills and the Korwas and Kols, there lies a large expanse mainly peopled by the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes, though with a considerable sprinkling of Kols in Mandla, Jubbulpore and Bilāspur. These latter may have immigrated in comparatively recent times, but the Kolis of Bombay may not improbably be another offshoot of the Kols, who with the Korkus came west at a period before the commencement of authentic history.3One of the largest subdivisions of the Korkus is termed Mowāsi, and this name is sometimes applied to the whole tribe, while the tract of country where they dwell was formerly known as the Mowās. Numerous derivations of this term have been given, and the one commonly accepted is that it signifies ‘The troubled country,’ and was applied to the hills at the time when bands of Koli or Korku freebooters, often led by dispossessed Rājpūt chieftains, harried the rich lowlands of Berār from their hill forts on the Satpūras, exacting from the Marāthas, with poetical justice, the payments known as ‘Tankha Mowāsi’ for the ransom of the settled and peaceful villages of the plains. The fact, however, that the Korkus found in Chota Nāgpur are also known as Mowāsi militates against this supposition, for if the name was applied only to the Korkus of the Satpūra plateau it would hardly have travelled as far east as Chota Nāgpur. Mr. Hislop derived it from the mahua tree. But at any rate Mowāsi meant a robber to Marātha ears, and the forests of Kalībhīt and Melghāt are known as the Mowās.Korkus of the Melghāt hillsKorkus of the Melghāt hills2. Tribal legends.According to their own traditions the Korkus like so many other early people were born from the soil. They state that Rāwan, the demon king of Ceylon, observed that the Vindhyan and Satpūra ranges were uninhabited and besought Mahādeo4to populate them. Mahādeo despatched his messenger, the crow Kāgeshwar, to find for him an ant-hillmade of red earth, and the crow discovered such an ant-hill between the Saolīgarh and Bhānwargarh ranges of Betūl. Mahādeo went to the place, and, taking a handful of red earth, made images in the form of a man and a woman, but immediately two fiery horses sent by Indra rose from the earth and trampled the images to dust. For two days Mahādeo persisted in his attempts, but as often as the images were made they were destroyed in a similar manner. But at length the god made an image of a dog and breathed into it the breath of life, and this dog kept off the horses of Indra. Mahādeo then made again his two images of a man and woman, and giving them human life, called them Mūla and Mūlai with the surname of Pothre, and these two became the ancestors of the Korku tribe. Mahādeo then created various plants for their use, themahul5from whose strong and fibrous leaves they could make aprons and head-coverings, the wild plantain whose leaves would afford other clothing, and the mahua, thechironji, thesewanandkullu6to provide them with food. Time went on and Mūla and Mūlai had children, and being dissatisfied with their condition as compared with that of their neighbours, besought Mahādeo to visit them once more. When he appeared Mūla asked the god to give him grain to eat such as he had heard of elsewhere on the earth. Mahādeo sent the crow Kāgeshwar to look for grain, and he found it stored in the house of a Māng named Japre who lived at some distance within the hills. Japre on hearing what was required besought the honour of a visit from the god himself. Mahādeo went, and Japre laid before him an offering of 12khandis7of grain, 12 goats and 12 buckets of water, and invited Mahādeo to eat and drink. The god was pleased with the offering and unwilling to reject it, but considered that he could not eat food defiled by the touch of the outcaste Māng, so Pārvati created the giant Bhīmsen and bade him eat up the food offered to Mahādeo. When Bhīmsen had finished the offering, however, it occurred to him that he also had been defiled by taking food from aMāng, and in revenge he destroyed Japre’s house and covered the site of it with débris and dirt. Japre then complained to Mahādeo of this sorry requital of his offering and prayed to have his house restored to him. Bhīmsen was ordered to do this, and agreed to comply on condition that Mūla should pay to him the same honour and worship as he accorded to Rāwan, the demon king. Mūla promised to do so, and Bhīmsen then sent the crow Kāgeshwar to the tank Daldal, bidding him bring thence the pig Buddu, who being brought was ordered to eat up all the dirt that covered Japre’s house. Buddu demurred except on condition that he also should be worshipped by Mūla and his descendants for ever. Mūla agreed to pay worship to him every third year, whereupon Buddu ate up all the dirt, and dying from the effects received the name of Mahābissum, under which he is worshipped to the present day. Mahādeo then took some seed from the Māng and planted it for Mūla’s use, and from it sprang the seven grains—kodon,kutki,gurgi,mandgi,barai,rālaanddhān8which the Korkus principally cultivate. It may be noticed that the story ingeniously accounts for and sheds as it were an orthodox sanction on the custom of the Korkus of worshipping the pig and the local demon Bhīmsen, who is placed on a sort of level with Rāwan, the opponent of Rāma. After recounting the above story Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “This legend given by the Korkus of their creation bears a curious analogy to our own belief as set forth in the Old Testament. They even give the tradition of a flood, in which a crow plays the part of Noah’s dove. There is a most curious similarity between their belief in this respect and that found in such distant and widely separated parts as Otaheite and Siberia. Remembering our own name ‘Adam,’ which I believe means in Hebrew ‘made of red earth,’ it is curious to observe the stress that is laid in the legend on the necessity for finding red earth for the making of man.” Another story told by the Korkus with the object of providing themselves with Rājpūt ancestry is to the effect that their forefathers dwelt in the city of Dhārānagar, the modern Dhār. It happened one day thatthey were out hunting and followed asāmbharstag, which fled on and on until it finally came to the Mahādeo or Pachmarhi hills and entered a cave. The hunters remained at the mouth waiting for the stag to come out, when a hermit appeared and gave them a handful of rice. This they at once cooked and ate as they were hungry from their long journey, and they found to their surprise that the rice sufficed for the whole party to eat their fill. The hermit then told them that he was the god Mahādeo, and had assumed the form of a stag in order to lead them to these hills, where they were to settle and worship him. They obeyed the command of the god, and a Korku zamīndār is still the hereditary guardian of Mahādeo’s shrine at Pachmarhi. This story has of course no historical value, and the Korkus have simply stolen the city of Dhārānagar for their ancestral home from their neighbours the Bhoyars and Panwārs. These castes relate similar stories, which may in their case be founded on fact.3. Tribal subdivisions.As is usual among the forest tribes the Korkus formerly had a subdivision called Rāj-Korkū, who were made up of landowning members of the caste and were admitted to rank among those from whom a Brāhman would take water, while in some cases a spurious Rājpūt ancestry was devised for them, as in the story given above. The remainder of the tribe were called Potharia, or those to whom a certain dirty habit is imputed. These main divisions have, however, become more or less obsolete, and have been supplanted by four subcastes with territorial names, Mowāsi, Bāwaria, Rūma and Bondoya. The meaning of the term Mowāsi has already been given, and this subcaste ranks as the highest, probably owing to the gentlemanly calling of armed robbery formerly practised by its members. The Bāwarias are the dwellers in the Bhānwargarh tract of Betūl, the Rūmas those who belong to Bāsim and Gangra in the Amraoti District, and the Bondoyas the residents of the Jītgarh and Pachmarhi tract. These last are also called Bhovadāya and Bhopa, and this name has been corrupted into Bopchi in the Wardha District, a few hundred Bondoya Korkus who live there being known as Bopchi and considered a distinct caste. Except among the Mowāsis, who usually marry intheir own subcaste, the rule of endogamy is not strictly observed. The above description refers to Betūl and Nimār, but in Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite says: “Four-fifths of the Korkus have been so affected by the spread of Brāhmanical influence as to have ceased to differ in any marked way from the Hindu element in the population, and the Korku has become so civilised as to have learnt to be ashamed of being a Korku.” Each subcaste has traditionally 36 exogamous septs, but the numbers have now increased. The sept names are generally taken from those of plants and animals. These were no doubt originally totemistic, but the Korkus now say that the names are derived from trees and other articles in or behind which the ancestors of each sept took refuge after being defeated in a great battle. Thus the ancestor of the Atkul sept hid in a gorge, that of the Bhūri Rāna sept behind a dove’s nest, that of the Dewda sept behind a rice plant, that of the Jāmbu sept behind ajāmuntree,9that of the Kāsada sept in the bed of a river, that of the Tākhar sept behind a cucumber plant, that of the Sakum sept behind a teak tree, and so on. Other names are Banku or a forest-dweller; Bhūrswa or Bhoyar, perhaps from the caste of that name; Basam or Baoria, the god of beehives; and Marskola or Mawāsi, which the Korkus take to mean a field flooded by rain. One sept has the name Killībhasam, and its ancestor is said to have eaten the flesh of a heifer half-devoured by a tiger and parched by a forest fire. In Hoshangābād the legend of the battle is not known, and among the names given by Mr. Crosthwaite are Akandi, the benighted one; Tandil, a rat; and Chuthar, the flying black-bug. In a few cases the names of septs are Hindi or Marāthi words, these perhaps affording a trace of the foundation of separate families by members of other castes. No totemistic usages are followed as a rule, but one curious instance may be given. One sept has the namelobo, which means a piece of cloth. But the wordloboalso signifies ‘to leak.’ If a person says a sentence containing the wordloboin either signification before a member of the sept while he is eating, he will throw away the food before him as if it were contaminated and prepare a meal afresh.Ten of the septs10consider the regular marriage of girls to be inauspicious, and the members of these simply give away their daughters without performing a ceremony.Korku women in full dressKorku women in full dress4. Marriage Betrothal.Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. The preliminaries to a marriage commence with thebāli-dūdnaor arrangement of the match. The boy’s father having selected a suitable bride for his son sends two elders of the caste to propose the match to her father, who as a matter of etiquette invariably declines it, swearing with great oaths that he will not allow his daughter to get married or that he will have a son-in-law who will serve for her. The messengers depart, but return again and again until the father’s obduracy is overcome, which may take from six months to two years, while from nine to twelve months is considered a respectable period. When his consent is finally obtained the residents of the girl’s village are called to hear it, and the compact is sealed with large potations of liquor. A ceremony of betrothal follows at which thedaijor dowry is arranged, this signifying among the Korkus the compensation to be paid to the girl’s father for the loss of her services. It is computed by a curious system of symbolic higgling. The women of the girl’s party take two plates and place on them two heaps containing respectively ten and fifty seeds of a sort used for reckoning. The ten seeds on the first plate represent five rupees for thepanchāyatand five cloths for the mother, brother, paternal aunt and paternal and maternal uncles of the girl. The heap of fifty seeds indicates that Rs. 50 must be paid to the girl’s father. When the plates are received by the boy’s party they take away forty-five of the seeds from the larger heap and return the plate, to indicate that they will only pay five rupees to the girl’s father. The women add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate again. The men then take away fifteen, thus advancing the bride-price to fifteen rupees. The women again add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate, and the men again take away twenty, and returning the remaining twenty which are taken as the sum agreed upon, in addition to the five cloths andfive rupees for thepanchāyat. The total amount paid averages about Rs. 60. Wealthy men sometimes refuse this payment or exchange a bride for a bridegroom. The dowry should be paid before the wedding, and in default of this the bridegroom’s father is made not a little uncomfortable at that festival. Should a betrothed girl die before marriage, the dowry does not abate and the parents of the girl have a right to stop her burial until it is paid. But if a father shows himself hard to please and refuses eligible offers, or if a daughter has fallen in love, as sometimes happens, she will leave her home quietly some morning and betake herself to the house of the man of her choice. If her young affections have not been engaged, she may select of her own accord a protector whose circumstances and position make him attractive, and preferably one whose mother is dead. Occasionally a girl will install herself in the house of a man who does not want her, and his position then is truly pitiable. He dare not turn her out as he would be punished by the caste for his want of gallantry, and his only course is to vacate his own house and leave her in possession. After a time his relations represent to her that the man she wants has gone on a journey and will not be back for a long time, and induce her to return to the paternal abode. But such a case is very rare.5. The marriage ceremony.The marriage ceremony resembles that of the Hindus but has one or two special features. After the customary cleaning of the house which should be performed on a Tuesday, the bridegroom is carried to the heap of stones which represents Mutua Deo, and there the Bhumka or priest invokes the various sylvan deities, offering to them the blood of chickens. Again when he is dressed for the wedding the boy is given a knife or dagger carrying a pierced lemon on the blade, and he and his parents and relatives proceed to aber11or wild plum tree. The boy and his parents sit at the foot of the tree and are tied to it with a thread, while the Bhumka again spills the blood of a fowl on the roots of the tree and invokes the sun and moon, whom the Korkus consider to be their ultimate ancestors. Theberfruit may perhaps be selected as symbolising the red orb of the settingsun. The party then dance round the tree. When the wedding procession is formed the following ceremony takes place: A blanket is spread in the yard of the house and the bridegroom and his elder brother’s wife are made to stand on it and embrace each other seven times. This may probably be a survival of the modified system of polyandry still practised by the Khonds, under which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder brother’s wife until their own marriage. The ceremony would then typify the cessation of this intercourse at the wedding of the boy. The procession must reach the bride’s village on a Monday, a Wednesday or a Friday, a breach of this rule entailing a fine of Rs. 8 on the boy’s father. On arrival at the bride’s village its progress is barred by a rope stretched across the road by the bride’s relatives, who must be given two pice each before it is removed. The bridegroom touches the marriage-shed with a bamboo fan. Next day the couple are seated in the shed and covered with a blanket on to which water is poured to symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. The groom ties a necklace of beads to the girl’s neck, and the couple are then lifted up by the relatives and carried three times round the yard of the house, while they throw yellow-coloured rice at each other. Their clothes are tied together and they proceed to make an offering to Mutua Deo. In Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite states, the marriage ceremony is presided over by the bridegroom’s aunt or other collateral female relative. The bride is hidden in her father’s house. The aunt then enters carrying the bridegroom and searches for the bride. When the bride is found the brother-in-law of the bridegroom takes her up, and bride and bridegroom are then seated under a sheet. The rings worn on the little finger of the right hand are exchanged under the sheet and the clothes of the couple are knotted together. Then follow thesapta padior seven steps round the post, and the ceremony concludes with a dance, a feast and an orgy of drunkenness. A priest takes no part in a Korku marriage ceremony, which is a purely social affair. If a man has only one daughter, or if he requires an assistant for his cultivation, he often makes his prospective son-in-law serve for his wife for a period varying from five to twelve years, the marriage beingthen celebrated at the father-in-law’s expense. If the boy runs away with the girl before the end of his service, his parents have to pay to the girl’s father five rupees for each year of the unexpired term. Marriage is usually adult, girls being wedded between the ages of ten and sixteen and boys at about twenty. Polygamy is freely practised by those who are well enough off to afford it, and instances are known of a man having as many as twelve wives living. A man must not marry his wife’s younger sister if she is the widow of a member of his own sept nor his elder brother’s widow if she is his wife’s elder sister. Widow-marriage is allowed, and divorce may be effected by a simple proclamation of the fact to thepanchāyatin a caste assembly.6. Religion.The Korkus consider themselves as Hindus, and are held to have a better claim to a place in the social structure of Hinduism than most of the other forest tribes, as they worship the sun and moon which are Hindu deities and also Mahādeo. In truth, however, their religion, like that of many low Hindu castes, is almost purely animistic. The sun and moon are their principal deities, the name for these luminaries in their language being Gomaj, which is also the term for god or a god. The head of each family offers a white she-goat and a white fowl to the sun every third year, and the Korkus stand with the face to the sun when beginning to sow, and perform other ceremonies with the face turned to the east. The moon has no special observances, but as she is a female deity she is probably considered to participate in those paid to the sun. These gods are, however, scarcely expected to interest themselves in the happenings of a Korku’s daily life, and the local godlings who are believed to regulate these are therefore propitiated with greater fervour. The three most important village deities are Dongar Deo, the god of the hills, who resides on the nearest hill outside the village and is worshipped at Dasahra with offerings of cocoanuts, limes, dates, vermilion and a goat; Mutua Deo, who is represented by a heap of stones within the village and receives a pig for a sacrifice, besides special oblations when disease and sickness are prevalent; and Māta, the goddess of smallpox, to whom cocoanuts and sweetmeats, but no animal sacrifices, are offered.7. The Bhumka.The priests of the Korkus are of two kinds—Parihārs and Bhumkas. The Parihār may be any man who is visited with the divine afflatus or selected as a mouthpiece by the deity; that is to say, a man of hysterical disposition or one subject to epileptic fits. He is more a prophet than a priest, and is consulted only on special occasions. Parihārs are also rare, but every village has its Bhumka, who performs the regular sacrifices to the village gods and the special ones entailed by disease or other calamities. On him devolves the dangerous duty of keeping tigers out of the boundaries. When a tiger visits the village the Bhumka repairs to Bāgh Deo12and makes an offering to the god, promising to repeat it for so many years on condition that the tiger does not appear for that time. The tiger on his part never fails to fulfil the contract thus silently made, for he is pre-eminently an honourable upright beast, not faithless and treacherous like the leopard whom no contract can bind. Some Bhumkas, however, masters of the most powerful spells, are not obliged to rely on the traditional honour of the tiger, but compel his attendance before Bāgh Deo; and such a Bhumka has been seen as a very Daniel among tigers muttering his incantations over two or three at a time as they crouched before him. Of one Bhumka in Kālibhīt it is related that he had a fine largesājtree, into which, when he uttered his spells, he would drive a nail, and on this the tiger came and ratified the compact with his enormous paw, with which he deeply scored the bark. In this way some have lost their lives, victims of misplaced confidence in their own powers.13If a man is sick and it is desired to ascertain what god or spirit of an ancestor has sent the malady, a handful of grain is waved over the sick man and then carried to the Bhumka. He makes a heap of it on the floor, and, sitting over it, swings a lighted lamp suspended by four strings from his fingers. He then repeats slowly the name of the village deities and the sick man’s ancestors, pausing between each, and the name at which the lamp stops swinging is that of the offended one. He then inquires in a similarmanner whether the propitiation shall be a pig, a chicken, a goat, a cocoanut and so on. The office of Bhumka is usually, but not necessarily, hereditary, and a new one is frequently chosen by lot, this being also done when a new village is founded. All the villagers then sit in a line before the shrine of Mutua Deo, to whom a black and a white chicken are offered. The Parihār, or, if none be available, the oldest man present, then sets apai14rolling before the line of men, and the person before whom it stops is marked out by this intervention of the deity as the new Bhumka. When a new village is to be founded a pai measure is filled with grain to a level with the brim, but with no head (this being known as amundior baldpai), and is placed before Mutua Deo in the evening and watched all night. In the morning the grain is poured out and again replaced in the measure; if it now fills this and also leaves enough for a head, and still more if it brims and runs over, it is a sign that the village will be very prosperous and that every cultivator’s granaries will run over in the same way. But it is an evil omen if the grain does not fill up to the level of the rim of the measure. The explanation of the difference in bulk may be that the grains increase or decrease slightly in size according as the atmosphere is moist or dry, or perhaps the Bhumka works the oracle. The Bhumka usually receives contributions in grain from all the houses in the village; but occasionally each cultivator gives him a day’s ploughing, a day’s weeding and a day’s wood-cutting free. The Bhumka is also employed in Hindu villages for the service of the village gods. But the belief in the powers of these deities is decaying, and with it the tribute paid to the Bhumka for securing their favour. Whereas formerly he received substantial contributions of grain on the same scale as a village menial, the cultivator will now often put him off with a basketful or even a handful, and say, ‘I cannot spare you any more, Bhumka; you must make all the gods content with that.’ In curing diseases the Parihār resorts to swindling tricks. He will tell the sick man that a sacrifice is necessary, asking for a goat if the patient can afford one. He will say itmust be of a particular colour, as all black, white or red, so that the sick man’s family may have much trouble in finding one, and they naturally think the sacrifice is more efficacious in proportion to the difficulty they experience in arranging for it. If they cannot afford a goat the Parihār tells them to sacrifice a cock, and requires one whose feathers curl backwards, as they occasionally do. If the family is very poor any chicken which has come out of the shell, so long as it has a beak, will do duty for a cock. If a man has a pain in his body the Parihār will suck the place and produce small pieces of bone from his mouth, stained with vermilion to imitate blood, and say that he has extracted them from the patient’s body. Perhaps the idea may be that the bones have been caused to enter his body and make him ill by the practice of magic. Formerly the Parihār had to prove his supernatural powers by whipping himself on the back with a rope into which the ends of nails were twisted, and to continue this ordeal for a period long enough to satisfy the villagers that he could not have borne it without some divine assistance. But this salutary custom has fallen into abeyance.8. Magical practices.The Korkus have the same belief in the efficacy of imitative and sympathetic magic as other primitive peoples.15Thus to injure an enemy, a clay image of him is made and pierced with a knife, in the belief that the real person will suffer in the same manner. If the clay can be taken from a place where his foot has made an impression in walking, or the image wrapped round with his hair, the charm is more efficacious. Or an image may be made with charcoal on some stolen portion of his apparel, and similarly wrapped in his hair; it is then burnt in the belief that the real person will be attacked by fever. Sometimes the image is buried in a place where it is likely that the victim will walk over it, when the same result is hoped for. In order to produce rain, a frog, as the animal delighting in the element of water, is caught and slung on a stick; the boys and girls then carry it from house to house and the householders pour water over it. If it is desired to stop rain a frog is caught and buried alive, this being done by a naked boy. Anotherdevice for producing rain is to yoke two naked women to a plough, who are then driven across a field like bullocks and goaded by a third naked woman. This device may possibly be intended to cause the gods to send rain, by showing how the natural order of the world is upset and reversed by the continued drought. In order to stop rain an unmarried youth collects water in a new earthen pot from the eaves and buries it below the hearth so that the water may disappear by evaporation and the rain may cease in the same manner. Another method is to send a man belonging to the Kāsada sept—Kāsadameaning slime—to bring a plough from the field and place it in his house. He also stops bathing or washing for the period for which a break in the rains is required, and the idea is perhaps that as the man whose name and nature are mud or slime is dry so the mud on the earth will dry up; and as the plough is dry, the ploughed fields which have been in contact with it will also become dry. In order to produce a quarrel the quills of a porcupine are smoked with the burnt parings of an enemy’s nails and deposited in the eaves of his house. And as the fretful porcupine raises his quills when angry with an enemy, these will have the effect of causing strife among the members of the household. If a person wishes to transfer his sickness to another, he obtains the latter’s cloth and draws on it with lamp-black two effigies, one upright and the other upside down. As soon as the owner puts on the cloth, he will fall a victim to the ailment of the person who drew the effigies. In order to obtain children the hair of a woman who has borne several is secured by a barren woman and buried below her bathing-stone, when the quality of fertility will be transferred to her from the owner of the hair. In order to facilitate child-birth a twisted thread is untwined before the eyes of the pregnant woman with the idea that the delivery will thus be made direct and easy; or she is given water to drink in which her husband’s left leg, a gun-barrel, a pestle, or a thunder-bolt has been washed; it being supposed that as each of these articles has the quality of direct and powerful propulsion, this quality will be conveyed to the woman and enable her to propel the child from her womb. The Korkus also trust largely to omens. It isinauspicious when starting out on some business to see a black-faced monkey or a hare passing either on the left or right, or a snake crossing in front. A person seeing any of these will usually return and postpone his business to a more favourable occasion. It is a bad omen for a hen to cackle or lay eggs at night. One sneeze is a bad omen, but two neutralise the effect and are favourable. An empty pot is a bad omen and a full one good. To break a pot when commencing any business is fatal, and shows that the work will come to naught. Thursdays and Fridays are favourable days for working, and Mondays and Tuesdays for propitiating one’s ancestors. Odd numbers are lucky. In order to lay to rest the spirit of a dead person, who it is feared may trouble the living, five pieces of bamboo are taken as representing the bones of the dead man, and these with five crab’s legs, five grains of rice and other articles are put into a basket and thrust into a crab’s hole under water. The occasion is made an excuse for much feasting and drinking, and the son or other representative who lays the spirit works himself up into a state of drunken excitement before he enters the water to search for a suitable hole. The fat of a tiger is considered to be an excellent medicine for rheumatism and sprains, and much store is set by it. The tiger’s tongue is also supposed to be a very powerful tonic or strengthening medicine for weakly children. It is cooked, pounded up, and a small quantity administered in milk or water. When a tiger has been killed the Gonds and Korkus will singe off his whiskers, as they think this will prevent the tiger’s spirit from haunting them. Another idea is that the whiskers if chopped up and mixed in the food of an enemy will poison him. They frequently object to touch a man who has been injured or mauled by a tiger, as they think that to do so would bring down the tiger’s vengeance on them. And in some places any Gond or Korku who touches a man mauled by a tiger is put temporarily out of caste and has to be purified and give a feast on readmission.9. Funeral rites.The dead are usually buried, two pice being first thrown into the grave to buy the site. The body is laid on its back, naked and with the head pointing to the south.The earth is mixed with briars and thorns while being filled in so as to keep off hyenas, and stones are placed over the grave. No fixed period of mourning is observed, but after the lapse of some days, the deceased’s family or relatives go to the burial-place, taking with them a piece of turmeric. This they cut into strips, and, placing them in a leaf-cup, pour water over them. As the water falls on the tomb, a god is called to witness that this day the dead man’s spirit has been sent to live with the ancestors. The pieces of turmeric are then tied in a cloth which, after receiving an oblation of fowl’s blood, is suspended from the main beam of the house, this being considered the dwelling-place of the departed. This ceremony, called Pitar Miloni, is the first rite for the admission of the deceased with the spirits of his ancestors, and is preliminary to the final ceremony of Sedoli which may be performed at any time between four months and fifteen years after the death. But until it is complete the spirit of the deceased has not been laid finally to rest and has the power of sending aches and pains to molest the bodies of its living relatives. Each sept has a place in which the Sedoli rites must be performed, and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he must return there to set his father’s spirit at rest and enable it to join the ancestral ghosts. When the Sedoli is to be performed an unblemished teak orsalai16tree is selected and wrapped round with a thread, while seven circuits of it are made and a bottle of liquor and two pice are offered as purchase money. It is then cut down and brought home, and from it a smooth stake calledmūndais fashioned, 24 to 30 inches high, and squared or pointed at the top, often being arrow-headed. On it are carved representations of the sun and moon, a spider and a human ear, and below these a figure representing the principal person in whose honour the stake is erected, on horseback with weapons in his hand. The proper method is to have onemūndafor each ancestor, but poor persons make one do for several and their figures are then carved below. But care must be taken that the total number of figures representing the dead does not exceed that of themembers of the family who have died during the period for which the Sedoli is performed. For in that case another person is likely to die for each extra figure. The little bags of turmeric representing the ancestors are then taken from the main beam of the house and carried with themūndato the burial-place. There a goat is sacrificed and these articles are besmeared with its blood, after which a feast is held accompanied by singing and dancing. Next day the party again go to the burial-place and plant themūndain it, placing two pice in the hole beneath it. They then proceed to the riverside, and, making a little ball from the flesh of the sacrificed animal, place it together with the bags of turmeric on a leaf platter, and throw the whole into the river saying, ‘Ancestors, find your home.’ If the ball sinks at once they consider that the ancestors have been successful, but if any delay takes place, they attribute it to the difficulty experienced by the ancestors in the selection of a home and throw in two pice to assist them. The pith of a bamboo may be substituted for turmeric to represent the bones. The dead are supposed to inhabit a village of their own similar to that in which they dwelt on earth and to lead there a colourless existence devoid alike of pleasure and of pain.10. Appearance and social customs.The following description of the Korkus is given by Major Forsyth in the Nimār Settlement Report of 1868–69, with the addition of some remarks made by other observers. The Korkus are well built and muscular. The average Korku has a round face, a nose rather wide but not flat like a negro’s, prominent cheek-bones, a scanty moustache and his head shaved after the Hindu fashion. They are slightly taller than the Gond, a shade darker and a good many shades dirtier. In the wilder parts one may come across some quite too awful Korkus, from whom an intervening space of fifty yards is an insufficient protection, though strange to say there are no less than six words in their language which mean ‘to wash’; one to wash the whole body, one the limbs, one for the face, one for the mouth, one for the hair and one for the clothes, besides a word for scouring the body with a stone and another word for bathing in a stream. Their habitations on the otherhand present quite a contrast to their individual want of cleanliness. They build their villages of a close bamboo wattle-work and with almost Swisslike neatness, a picturesque site being usually chosen, and the plan being one long street with a wide open roadway, or several such parallel with each other. The villages are kept remarkably clean, in striking contrast to the habitations of other aboriginal tribes. The average village contains about twenty huts, and it is the custom to bind these so closely together that forest fires often sweep through a whole village before a hut can be removed to check their course. The average hut is about fifteen feet square with a rather flat roof covered with loose grass over a layer of leaves and pressed down by outside poles. No nails are required as the posts are bound firmly together with bamboo or creeper fibre. The inmates generally sleep on the ground, and a few low stools carved from teak wood serve them for pillows. Every village has a few pigs and fowls running about, both of which are eaten after being sacrificed. The Korku is an adept in the crude process of distillation in which the only apparatus required consists of twogharasor earthen pots, a hollow bamboo, some mahua flowers, water and a fire. By this means the Korku manages to produce liquor upon which he can effectually get drunk. They are by no means particular about what they eat. Fowls, pork, fish, crabs and tortoise are all consumed, and beef and rats are eaten in some localities but not in others. The Rūma and Bondoya Korkus eat buffaloes, and the latter add monkeys to an already comprehensive dietary. The lowest caste with whom they are said to eat are Kolis. They do not eat with Gonds. Gonds, Māngs, Basors and a few other low castes take food from them and also, it is said, Bhīls. The Korkus will freely admit members of the higher castes into the community, and a woman incurs no social penalty for aliaisonwith a member of any caste from which a Korku can take food. But if she goes wrong with a low-caste man she is permanently expelled and a fine of Rs. 40 is exacted from the parents before they are readmitted to social intercourse. In the case of adultery with a member of the caste, if the husband does not wish to keep his wife, theoffending parties have a lock of hair cut off and give a dinner, and are then considered to be married. But if the husband does not turn his wife away, he, on his wife’s account, and the seducer must give a joint dinner to the caste. They have a tribal council orpanchāyatwhich inflicts the usual penalties for social offences, while in very serious cases, such as intercourse with a low caste, it causes the offender to be born again. He is placed inside a large earthen pot which is sealed up, and when taken out of this he is said to be born again from his mother’s womb. He is then buried in sand and comes out as a fresh incarnation from the earth, placed in a grass hut which is fired, and from within which he runs out as it is burning, immersed in water, and finally has a tuft cut from his scalp-lock and is fined two and a half rupees. The Korkus as a race are very poor, and a poor Korku manages to exist with even less clothing than a poor Gond. A loincloth of the scantiest and a wisp of turban coiled on the top of the head and leaving the centre of the skull uncovered form his complete costume for dry weather. Sometimes a large brass chain is worn in the turban or attached to the waist, and to it are suspended a flint and steel and a small dry gourd full of cotton—the implements for obtaining fire. It is also common to wear a large brass ring in one ear. A special habit of the Korku in Nimār, Major Forsyth states, is to carry a small bamboo flute behind the ear like a pen, from which he discourses a not unpleasant strain, chiefly when drunk or engaged in propitiating Bāgh Deo, Devi or any other dread power whom he reverences. The women as a rule wear only a dirty whitesāriand are loaded with cheap ornaments. Necklaces of beads are worn on the neck, covering the chest, while the arms and legs are weighed down with brass and iron.11. Character.Like most hill tribes the Korkus are remarkably honest and truthful, slow at calculation and very indignant at being cheated. They are very improvident and great drunkards, and it is the latter habit which has aggravated the obstacles to their improvement.12. Inheritance.The Korku law of inheritance differs somewhat from that of the Hindus. Among them a grandson does notinherit the property of his grandfather unless it is openly and clearly granted to him during the latter’s lifetime. A married son living separately from his father has no right of succession to the paternal property, but if he is unmarried, he receives half the share of a son who is living with his father. A daughter or a daughter’s son does not inherit the father’s property unless it is granted to either of them by a deed of gift. The sons and mother share equally.13. Occupation.The Korkus formerly lived principally by hunting, and practised the shifting cultivation in the forests which is now forbidden. Very few of them are landowners, but some large zamīndāri estates in Hoshangābād and Chhindwāra are held by Korku proprietors, who are protected by the prohibition of alienation. Though too improvident and lazy to be good cultivators, they are in great request as farmservants and ploughmen, being too honest to defraud their master of labour or material. A remarkable change has thus taken place from their former character of notorious robbers. They cultivate mainly in the hilly tracts and grow light grains, though some have colonised the waste lands of the upper Tapti valley in Nimār and raise good crops of wheat. They do not as a rule keep cattle other than the few oxen required for cultivating the soil and hauling out timber. Game of all kinds is caught by means of heavy log traps for the larger varieties such as sāmbhar, bear and spotted deer and even leopard; while hares, jungle-fowl and the smaller sort of game are caught under heavy stones held up by nicely adjusted strings. Occasionally, when in search of meat, a whole village will sally out into the forest. Theshikārihas generally a matchlock concealed in some hiding-place in the jungle, and once he is posted the others beat towards him and any animal that turns up is shot at. In the hot weather the water-hole and the bow and arrow play no small part in helping to fill the Korku larder. Another method of catching birds is to spread the pounded fruit of a certain parasitic airplant on a rock. A thick shining gum exudes which so entangles the feet of the smaller birds as to prevent their escape. Fish dams are built when the water subsides after the rains, and a cylindrical basket six or eight feet in length beingadjusted at the outlet, the fish are driven into this from above. During the hot season the fruit of theghetuis thrown into the pools, and this stupefies the fish and causes them to float on the surface of the water, where they are easily caught.14. Language.The Korkus have a language of their own which belongs to the Kolarian or Munda sub-family. Dr. Grierson says of it: “The Munda, sometimes called the Kolarian family, is probably the older branch of the Dravido-Munda languages. It exhibits the characteristics of an agglutinative language to an extraordinarily complete degree.” In the Central Provinces nearly 90 per cent of Korkus were returned as speaking their own language in 1911. Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “The language is in a state of decay and transition, and Hindi and Marāthi terms have crept into its vocabulary. But very few Gondi words have been adopted. A grammar of the Korku language by Drake has been printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta.”1This article is largely based on a monograph contributed by Mr. H. R. Crosthwaite, Assistant Commissioner, Hoshangābād, and contains also extracts from a monograph by Mr. Ganga Prasād Khatri, Forest Divisional Officer, Betūl, and from the description of the Korkus given by Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott in theHoshangābād Settlement Report(1867), and by Major Forsyth in theNimār Settlement Report(1868–69).2Risley’sTribes and Castes of Bengal, Appendix V.: Korwā.3See also art. Kol.4The local term for the god Siva.5Bauhinia Vahlii.6Bassia latifolia,Buchanania latifolia,Gmelina arboreaandSterculia urens.7Nearly 3½ tons.8Paspalum scrobiculatum,Panicum psilopodium,Coix Lachryma,Eleusine coracana,Saccharum officianarum,Setaria italica,Oryza sativa.9Eugenia jambolana.10Makyātotha, Jondhrātotha, Dharsīima, Changri, Lobo, Khambi, Dagde, Kullya, Bursūma and Killībhasam.11Zizyphus jujuba.12The tiger-god.13The above passage is taken from Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott’sHoshangābād Settlement Reportwritten in 1867. Since that time the belief in the magical powers of the Bhumka has somewhat declined.14A small measure for grain.15Most of the information in this paragraph is taken from Mr. Ganga Prasād Khatri’s Report.16Boswellia serrata.

KORKUList of Paragraphs1.Distribution and origin.2.Tribal legends.3.Tribal subdivisions.4.Marriage. Betrothal.5.The marriage ceremony.6.Religion.7.The Bhumka.8.Magical practices.9.Funeral rites.10.Appearance and social customs.11.Character.12.Inheritance.13.Occupation.14.Language.1. Distribution and origin.Korku.1—A Munda or a Kolarian tribe akin to the Korwas, with whom they have been identified in the India Census of 1901. They number about 150,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, and belong to the west of the Satpūra plateau, residing only in the Hoshangābād, Nimār, Betūl and Chhindwāra Districts. About 30,000 Korkus dwell in the Berār plain adjoining the Satpūras, and a few thousand belong to Bhopāl. The word Korku means simply ‘men’ or ‘tribesmen,’korubeing their term for a man andkūa plural termination. The tribe have a language of their own, which resembles that of the Kols of Chota Nāgpur. The language of the Korwas, another Munda tribe found in Chota Nāgpur, is also known as Korakū or Korkū, and one of their subcastes has the same name.2Some Korkus or Mowāsis are found in Chota Nāgpur, and Colonel Dalton considered them a branch of the Korwas. Another argument may be adduced from the sept names of the Korkuswhich are in many cases identical with those of the Kols and Korwas. There is little reason to doubt then that the Korkus are the same tribe as the Korwas, and both of these may be taken to be offshoots of the great Kol or Munda tribe. The Korkus have come much further west than their kinsmen, and between their residence on the Mahādeo or western Satpūra hills and the Korwas and Kols, there lies a large expanse mainly peopled by the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes, though with a considerable sprinkling of Kols in Mandla, Jubbulpore and Bilāspur. These latter may have immigrated in comparatively recent times, but the Kolis of Bombay may not improbably be another offshoot of the Kols, who with the Korkus came west at a period before the commencement of authentic history.3One of the largest subdivisions of the Korkus is termed Mowāsi, and this name is sometimes applied to the whole tribe, while the tract of country where they dwell was formerly known as the Mowās. Numerous derivations of this term have been given, and the one commonly accepted is that it signifies ‘The troubled country,’ and was applied to the hills at the time when bands of Koli or Korku freebooters, often led by dispossessed Rājpūt chieftains, harried the rich lowlands of Berār from their hill forts on the Satpūras, exacting from the Marāthas, with poetical justice, the payments known as ‘Tankha Mowāsi’ for the ransom of the settled and peaceful villages of the plains. The fact, however, that the Korkus found in Chota Nāgpur are also known as Mowāsi militates against this supposition, for if the name was applied only to the Korkus of the Satpūra plateau it would hardly have travelled as far east as Chota Nāgpur. Mr. Hislop derived it from the mahua tree. But at any rate Mowāsi meant a robber to Marātha ears, and the forests of Kalībhīt and Melghāt are known as the Mowās.Korkus of the Melghāt hillsKorkus of the Melghāt hills2. Tribal legends.According to their own traditions the Korkus like so many other early people were born from the soil. They state that Rāwan, the demon king of Ceylon, observed that the Vindhyan and Satpūra ranges were uninhabited and besought Mahādeo4to populate them. Mahādeo despatched his messenger, the crow Kāgeshwar, to find for him an ant-hillmade of red earth, and the crow discovered such an ant-hill between the Saolīgarh and Bhānwargarh ranges of Betūl. Mahādeo went to the place, and, taking a handful of red earth, made images in the form of a man and a woman, but immediately two fiery horses sent by Indra rose from the earth and trampled the images to dust. For two days Mahādeo persisted in his attempts, but as often as the images were made they were destroyed in a similar manner. But at length the god made an image of a dog and breathed into it the breath of life, and this dog kept off the horses of Indra. Mahādeo then made again his two images of a man and woman, and giving them human life, called them Mūla and Mūlai with the surname of Pothre, and these two became the ancestors of the Korku tribe. Mahādeo then created various plants for their use, themahul5from whose strong and fibrous leaves they could make aprons and head-coverings, the wild plantain whose leaves would afford other clothing, and the mahua, thechironji, thesewanandkullu6to provide them with food. Time went on and Mūla and Mūlai had children, and being dissatisfied with their condition as compared with that of their neighbours, besought Mahādeo to visit them once more. When he appeared Mūla asked the god to give him grain to eat such as he had heard of elsewhere on the earth. Mahādeo sent the crow Kāgeshwar to look for grain, and he found it stored in the house of a Māng named Japre who lived at some distance within the hills. Japre on hearing what was required besought the honour of a visit from the god himself. Mahādeo went, and Japre laid before him an offering of 12khandis7of grain, 12 goats and 12 buckets of water, and invited Mahādeo to eat and drink. The god was pleased with the offering and unwilling to reject it, but considered that he could not eat food defiled by the touch of the outcaste Māng, so Pārvati created the giant Bhīmsen and bade him eat up the food offered to Mahādeo. When Bhīmsen had finished the offering, however, it occurred to him that he also had been defiled by taking food from aMāng, and in revenge he destroyed Japre’s house and covered the site of it with débris and dirt. Japre then complained to Mahādeo of this sorry requital of his offering and prayed to have his house restored to him. Bhīmsen was ordered to do this, and agreed to comply on condition that Mūla should pay to him the same honour and worship as he accorded to Rāwan, the demon king. Mūla promised to do so, and Bhīmsen then sent the crow Kāgeshwar to the tank Daldal, bidding him bring thence the pig Buddu, who being brought was ordered to eat up all the dirt that covered Japre’s house. Buddu demurred except on condition that he also should be worshipped by Mūla and his descendants for ever. Mūla agreed to pay worship to him every third year, whereupon Buddu ate up all the dirt, and dying from the effects received the name of Mahābissum, under which he is worshipped to the present day. Mahādeo then took some seed from the Māng and planted it for Mūla’s use, and from it sprang the seven grains—kodon,kutki,gurgi,mandgi,barai,rālaanddhān8which the Korkus principally cultivate. It may be noticed that the story ingeniously accounts for and sheds as it were an orthodox sanction on the custom of the Korkus of worshipping the pig and the local demon Bhīmsen, who is placed on a sort of level with Rāwan, the opponent of Rāma. After recounting the above story Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “This legend given by the Korkus of their creation bears a curious analogy to our own belief as set forth in the Old Testament. They even give the tradition of a flood, in which a crow plays the part of Noah’s dove. There is a most curious similarity between their belief in this respect and that found in such distant and widely separated parts as Otaheite and Siberia. Remembering our own name ‘Adam,’ which I believe means in Hebrew ‘made of red earth,’ it is curious to observe the stress that is laid in the legend on the necessity for finding red earth for the making of man.” Another story told by the Korkus with the object of providing themselves with Rājpūt ancestry is to the effect that their forefathers dwelt in the city of Dhārānagar, the modern Dhār. It happened one day thatthey were out hunting and followed asāmbharstag, which fled on and on until it finally came to the Mahādeo or Pachmarhi hills and entered a cave. The hunters remained at the mouth waiting for the stag to come out, when a hermit appeared and gave them a handful of rice. This they at once cooked and ate as they were hungry from their long journey, and they found to their surprise that the rice sufficed for the whole party to eat their fill. The hermit then told them that he was the god Mahādeo, and had assumed the form of a stag in order to lead them to these hills, where they were to settle and worship him. They obeyed the command of the god, and a Korku zamīndār is still the hereditary guardian of Mahādeo’s shrine at Pachmarhi. This story has of course no historical value, and the Korkus have simply stolen the city of Dhārānagar for their ancestral home from their neighbours the Bhoyars and Panwārs. These castes relate similar stories, which may in their case be founded on fact.3. Tribal subdivisions.As is usual among the forest tribes the Korkus formerly had a subdivision called Rāj-Korkū, who were made up of landowning members of the caste and were admitted to rank among those from whom a Brāhman would take water, while in some cases a spurious Rājpūt ancestry was devised for them, as in the story given above. The remainder of the tribe were called Potharia, or those to whom a certain dirty habit is imputed. These main divisions have, however, become more or less obsolete, and have been supplanted by four subcastes with territorial names, Mowāsi, Bāwaria, Rūma and Bondoya. The meaning of the term Mowāsi has already been given, and this subcaste ranks as the highest, probably owing to the gentlemanly calling of armed robbery formerly practised by its members. The Bāwarias are the dwellers in the Bhānwargarh tract of Betūl, the Rūmas those who belong to Bāsim and Gangra in the Amraoti District, and the Bondoyas the residents of the Jītgarh and Pachmarhi tract. These last are also called Bhovadāya and Bhopa, and this name has been corrupted into Bopchi in the Wardha District, a few hundred Bondoya Korkus who live there being known as Bopchi and considered a distinct caste. Except among the Mowāsis, who usually marry intheir own subcaste, the rule of endogamy is not strictly observed. The above description refers to Betūl and Nimār, but in Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite says: “Four-fifths of the Korkus have been so affected by the spread of Brāhmanical influence as to have ceased to differ in any marked way from the Hindu element in the population, and the Korku has become so civilised as to have learnt to be ashamed of being a Korku.” Each subcaste has traditionally 36 exogamous septs, but the numbers have now increased. The sept names are generally taken from those of plants and animals. These were no doubt originally totemistic, but the Korkus now say that the names are derived from trees and other articles in or behind which the ancestors of each sept took refuge after being defeated in a great battle. Thus the ancestor of the Atkul sept hid in a gorge, that of the Bhūri Rāna sept behind a dove’s nest, that of the Dewda sept behind a rice plant, that of the Jāmbu sept behind ajāmuntree,9that of the Kāsada sept in the bed of a river, that of the Tākhar sept behind a cucumber plant, that of the Sakum sept behind a teak tree, and so on. Other names are Banku or a forest-dweller; Bhūrswa or Bhoyar, perhaps from the caste of that name; Basam or Baoria, the god of beehives; and Marskola or Mawāsi, which the Korkus take to mean a field flooded by rain. One sept has the name Killībhasam, and its ancestor is said to have eaten the flesh of a heifer half-devoured by a tiger and parched by a forest fire. In Hoshangābād the legend of the battle is not known, and among the names given by Mr. Crosthwaite are Akandi, the benighted one; Tandil, a rat; and Chuthar, the flying black-bug. In a few cases the names of septs are Hindi or Marāthi words, these perhaps affording a trace of the foundation of separate families by members of other castes. No totemistic usages are followed as a rule, but one curious instance may be given. One sept has the namelobo, which means a piece of cloth. But the wordloboalso signifies ‘to leak.’ If a person says a sentence containing the wordloboin either signification before a member of the sept while he is eating, he will throw away the food before him as if it were contaminated and prepare a meal afresh.Ten of the septs10consider the regular marriage of girls to be inauspicious, and the members of these simply give away their daughters without performing a ceremony.Korku women in full dressKorku women in full dress4. Marriage Betrothal.Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. The preliminaries to a marriage commence with thebāli-dūdnaor arrangement of the match. The boy’s father having selected a suitable bride for his son sends two elders of the caste to propose the match to her father, who as a matter of etiquette invariably declines it, swearing with great oaths that he will not allow his daughter to get married or that he will have a son-in-law who will serve for her. The messengers depart, but return again and again until the father’s obduracy is overcome, which may take from six months to two years, while from nine to twelve months is considered a respectable period. When his consent is finally obtained the residents of the girl’s village are called to hear it, and the compact is sealed with large potations of liquor. A ceremony of betrothal follows at which thedaijor dowry is arranged, this signifying among the Korkus the compensation to be paid to the girl’s father for the loss of her services. It is computed by a curious system of symbolic higgling. The women of the girl’s party take two plates and place on them two heaps containing respectively ten and fifty seeds of a sort used for reckoning. The ten seeds on the first plate represent five rupees for thepanchāyatand five cloths for the mother, brother, paternal aunt and paternal and maternal uncles of the girl. The heap of fifty seeds indicates that Rs. 50 must be paid to the girl’s father. When the plates are received by the boy’s party they take away forty-five of the seeds from the larger heap and return the plate, to indicate that they will only pay five rupees to the girl’s father. The women add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate again. The men then take away fifteen, thus advancing the bride-price to fifteen rupees. The women again add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate, and the men again take away twenty, and returning the remaining twenty which are taken as the sum agreed upon, in addition to the five cloths andfive rupees for thepanchāyat. The total amount paid averages about Rs. 60. Wealthy men sometimes refuse this payment or exchange a bride for a bridegroom. The dowry should be paid before the wedding, and in default of this the bridegroom’s father is made not a little uncomfortable at that festival. Should a betrothed girl die before marriage, the dowry does not abate and the parents of the girl have a right to stop her burial until it is paid. But if a father shows himself hard to please and refuses eligible offers, or if a daughter has fallen in love, as sometimes happens, she will leave her home quietly some morning and betake herself to the house of the man of her choice. If her young affections have not been engaged, she may select of her own accord a protector whose circumstances and position make him attractive, and preferably one whose mother is dead. Occasionally a girl will install herself in the house of a man who does not want her, and his position then is truly pitiable. He dare not turn her out as he would be punished by the caste for his want of gallantry, and his only course is to vacate his own house and leave her in possession. After a time his relations represent to her that the man she wants has gone on a journey and will not be back for a long time, and induce her to return to the paternal abode. But such a case is very rare.5. The marriage ceremony.The marriage ceremony resembles that of the Hindus but has one or two special features. After the customary cleaning of the house which should be performed on a Tuesday, the bridegroom is carried to the heap of stones which represents Mutua Deo, and there the Bhumka or priest invokes the various sylvan deities, offering to them the blood of chickens. Again when he is dressed for the wedding the boy is given a knife or dagger carrying a pierced lemon on the blade, and he and his parents and relatives proceed to aber11or wild plum tree. The boy and his parents sit at the foot of the tree and are tied to it with a thread, while the Bhumka again spills the blood of a fowl on the roots of the tree and invokes the sun and moon, whom the Korkus consider to be their ultimate ancestors. Theberfruit may perhaps be selected as symbolising the red orb of the settingsun. The party then dance round the tree. When the wedding procession is formed the following ceremony takes place: A blanket is spread in the yard of the house and the bridegroom and his elder brother’s wife are made to stand on it and embrace each other seven times. This may probably be a survival of the modified system of polyandry still practised by the Khonds, under which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder brother’s wife until their own marriage. The ceremony would then typify the cessation of this intercourse at the wedding of the boy. The procession must reach the bride’s village on a Monday, a Wednesday or a Friday, a breach of this rule entailing a fine of Rs. 8 on the boy’s father. On arrival at the bride’s village its progress is barred by a rope stretched across the road by the bride’s relatives, who must be given two pice each before it is removed. The bridegroom touches the marriage-shed with a bamboo fan. Next day the couple are seated in the shed and covered with a blanket on to which water is poured to symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. The groom ties a necklace of beads to the girl’s neck, and the couple are then lifted up by the relatives and carried three times round the yard of the house, while they throw yellow-coloured rice at each other. Their clothes are tied together and they proceed to make an offering to Mutua Deo. In Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite states, the marriage ceremony is presided over by the bridegroom’s aunt or other collateral female relative. The bride is hidden in her father’s house. The aunt then enters carrying the bridegroom and searches for the bride. When the bride is found the brother-in-law of the bridegroom takes her up, and bride and bridegroom are then seated under a sheet. The rings worn on the little finger of the right hand are exchanged under the sheet and the clothes of the couple are knotted together. Then follow thesapta padior seven steps round the post, and the ceremony concludes with a dance, a feast and an orgy of drunkenness. A priest takes no part in a Korku marriage ceremony, which is a purely social affair. If a man has only one daughter, or if he requires an assistant for his cultivation, he often makes his prospective son-in-law serve for his wife for a period varying from five to twelve years, the marriage beingthen celebrated at the father-in-law’s expense. If the boy runs away with the girl before the end of his service, his parents have to pay to the girl’s father five rupees for each year of the unexpired term. Marriage is usually adult, girls being wedded between the ages of ten and sixteen and boys at about twenty. Polygamy is freely practised by those who are well enough off to afford it, and instances are known of a man having as many as twelve wives living. A man must not marry his wife’s younger sister if she is the widow of a member of his own sept nor his elder brother’s widow if she is his wife’s elder sister. Widow-marriage is allowed, and divorce may be effected by a simple proclamation of the fact to thepanchāyatin a caste assembly.6. Religion.The Korkus consider themselves as Hindus, and are held to have a better claim to a place in the social structure of Hinduism than most of the other forest tribes, as they worship the sun and moon which are Hindu deities and also Mahādeo. In truth, however, their religion, like that of many low Hindu castes, is almost purely animistic. The sun and moon are their principal deities, the name for these luminaries in their language being Gomaj, which is also the term for god or a god. The head of each family offers a white she-goat and a white fowl to the sun every third year, and the Korkus stand with the face to the sun when beginning to sow, and perform other ceremonies with the face turned to the east. The moon has no special observances, but as she is a female deity she is probably considered to participate in those paid to the sun. These gods are, however, scarcely expected to interest themselves in the happenings of a Korku’s daily life, and the local godlings who are believed to regulate these are therefore propitiated with greater fervour. The three most important village deities are Dongar Deo, the god of the hills, who resides on the nearest hill outside the village and is worshipped at Dasahra with offerings of cocoanuts, limes, dates, vermilion and a goat; Mutua Deo, who is represented by a heap of stones within the village and receives a pig for a sacrifice, besides special oblations when disease and sickness are prevalent; and Māta, the goddess of smallpox, to whom cocoanuts and sweetmeats, but no animal sacrifices, are offered.7. The Bhumka.The priests of the Korkus are of two kinds—Parihārs and Bhumkas. The Parihār may be any man who is visited with the divine afflatus or selected as a mouthpiece by the deity; that is to say, a man of hysterical disposition or one subject to epileptic fits. He is more a prophet than a priest, and is consulted only on special occasions. Parihārs are also rare, but every village has its Bhumka, who performs the regular sacrifices to the village gods and the special ones entailed by disease or other calamities. On him devolves the dangerous duty of keeping tigers out of the boundaries. When a tiger visits the village the Bhumka repairs to Bāgh Deo12and makes an offering to the god, promising to repeat it for so many years on condition that the tiger does not appear for that time. The tiger on his part never fails to fulfil the contract thus silently made, for he is pre-eminently an honourable upright beast, not faithless and treacherous like the leopard whom no contract can bind. Some Bhumkas, however, masters of the most powerful spells, are not obliged to rely on the traditional honour of the tiger, but compel his attendance before Bāgh Deo; and such a Bhumka has been seen as a very Daniel among tigers muttering his incantations over two or three at a time as they crouched before him. Of one Bhumka in Kālibhīt it is related that he had a fine largesājtree, into which, when he uttered his spells, he would drive a nail, and on this the tiger came and ratified the compact with his enormous paw, with which he deeply scored the bark. In this way some have lost their lives, victims of misplaced confidence in their own powers.13If a man is sick and it is desired to ascertain what god or spirit of an ancestor has sent the malady, a handful of grain is waved over the sick man and then carried to the Bhumka. He makes a heap of it on the floor, and, sitting over it, swings a lighted lamp suspended by four strings from his fingers. He then repeats slowly the name of the village deities and the sick man’s ancestors, pausing between each, and the name at which the lamp stops swinging is that of the offended one. He then inquires in a similarmanner whether the propitiation shall be a pig, a chicken, a goat, a cocoanut and so on. The office of Bhumka is usually, but not necessarily, hereditary, and a new one is frequently chosen by lot, this being also done when a new village is founded. All the villagers then sit in a line before the shrine of Mutua Deo, to whom a black and a white chicken are offered. The Parihār, or, if none be available, the oldest man present, then sets apai14rolling before the line of men, and the person before whom it stops is marked out by this intervention of the deity as the new Bhumka. When a new village is to be founded a pai measure is filled with grain to a level with the brim, but with no head (this being known as amundior baldpai), and is placed before Mutua Deo in the evening and watched all night. In the morning the grain is poured out and again replaced in the measure; if it now fills this and also leaves enough for a head, and still more if it brims and runs over, it is a sign that the village will be very prosperous and that every cultivator’s granaries will run over in the same way. But it is an evil omen if the grain does not fill up to the level of the rim of the measure. The explanation of the difference in bulk may be that the grains increase or decrease slightly in size according as the atmosphere is moist or dry, or perhaps the Bhumka works the oracle. The Bhumka usually receives contributions in grain from all the houses in the village; but occasionally each cultivator gives him a day’s ploughing, a day’s weeding and a day’s wood-cutting free. The Bhumka is also employed in Hindu villages for the service of the village gods. But the belief in the powers of these deities is decaying, and with it the tribute paid to the Bhumka for securing their favour. Whereas formerly he received substantial contributions of grain on the same scale as a village menial, the cultivator will now often put him off with a basketful or even a handful, and say, ‘I cannot spare you any more, Bhumka; you must make all the gods content with that.’ In curing diseases the Parihār resorts to swindling tricks. He will tell the sick man that a sacrifice is necessary, asking for a goat if the patient can afford one. He will say itmust be of a particular colour, as all black, white or red, so that the sick man’s family may have much trouble in finding one, and they naturally think the sacrifice is more efficacious in proportion to the difficulty they experience in arranging for it. If they cannot afford a goat the Parihār tells them to sacrifice a cock, and requires one whose feathers curl backwards, as they occasionally do. If the family is very poor any chicken which has come out of the shell, so long as it has a beak, will do duty for a cock. If a man has a pain in his body the Parihār will suck the place and produce small pieces of bone from his mouth, stained with vermilion to imitate blood, and say that he has extracted them from the patient’s body. Perhaps the idea may be that the bones have been caused to enter his body and make him ill by the practice of magic. Formerly the Parihār had to prove his supernatural powers by whipping himself on the back with a rope into which the ends of nails were twisted, and to continue this ordeal for a period long enough to satisfy the villagers that he could not have borne it without some divine assistance. But this salutary custom has fallen into abeyance.8. Magical practices.The Korkus have the same belief in the efficacy of imitative and sympathetic magic as other primitive peoples.15Thus to injure an enemy, a clay image of him is made and pierced with a knife, in the belief that the real person will suffer in the same manner. If the clay can be taken from a place where his foot has made an impression in walking, or the image wrapped round with his hair, the charm is more efficacious. Or an image may be made with charcoal on some stolen portion of his apparel, and similarly wrapped in his hair; it is then burnt in the belief that the real person will be attacked by fever. Sometimes the image is buried in a place where it is likely that the victim will walk over it, when the same result is hoped for. In order to produce rain, a frog, as the animal delighting in the element of water, is caught and slung on a stick; the boys and girls then carry it from house to house and the householders pour water over it. If it is desired to stop rain a frog is caught and buried alive, this being done by a naked boy. Anotherdevice for producing rain is to yoke two naked women to a plough, who are then driven across a field like bullocks and goaded by a third naked woman. This device may possibly be intended to cause the gods to send rain, by showing how the natural order of the world is upset and reversed by the continued drought. In order to stop rain an unmarried youth collects water in a new earthen pot from the eaves and buries it below the hearth so that the water may disappear by evaporation and the rain may cease in the same manner. Another method is to send a man belonging to the Kāsada sept—Kāsadameaning slime—to bring a plough from the field and place it in his house. He also stops bathing or washing for the period for which a break in the rains is required, and the idea is perhaps that as the man whose name and nature are mud or slime is dry so the mud on the earth will dry up; and as the plough is dry, the ploughed fields which have been in contact with it will also become dry. In order to produce a quarrel the quills of a porcupine are smoked with the burnt parings of an enemy’s nails and deposited in the eaves of his house. And as the fretful porcupine raises his quills when angry with an enemy, these will have the effect of causing strife among the members of the household. If a person wishes to transfer his sickness to another, he obtains the latter’s cloth and draws on it with lamp-black two effigies, one upright and the other upside down. As soon as the owner puts on the cloth, he will fall a victim to the ailment of the person who drew the effigies. In order to obtain children the hair of a woman who has borne several is secured by a barren woman and buried below her bathing-stone, when the quality of fertility will be transferred to her from the owner of the hair. In order to facilitate child-birth a twisted thread is untwined before the eyes of the pregnant woman with the idea that the delivery will thus be made direct and easy; or she is given water to drink in which her husband’s left leg, a gun-barrel, a pestle, or a thunder-bolt has been washed; it being supposed that as each of these articles has the quality of direct and powerful propulsion, this quality will be conveyed to the woman and enable her to propel the child from her womb. The Korkus also trust largely to omens. It isinauspicious when starting out on some business to see a black-faced monkey or a hare passing either on the left or right, or a snake crossing in front. A person seeing any of these will usually return and postpone his business to a more favourable occasion. It is a bad omen for a hen to cackle or lay eggs at night. One sneeze is a bad omen, but two neutralise the effect and are favourable. An empty pot is a bad omen and a full one good. To break a pot when commencing any business is fatal, and shows that the work will come to naught. Thursdays and Fridays are favourable days for working, and Mondays and Tuesdays for propitiating one’s ancestors. Odd numbers are lucky. In order to lay to rest the spirit of a dead person, who it is feared may trouble the living, five pieces of bamboo are taken as representing the bones of the dead man, and these with five crab’s legs, five grains of rice and other articles are put into a basket and thrust into a crab’s hole under water. The occasion is made an excuse for much feasting and drinking, and the son or other representative who lays the spirit works himself up into a state of drunken excitement before he enters the water to search for a suitable hole. The fat of a tiger is considered to be an excellent medicine for rheumatism and sprains, and much store is set by it. The tiger’s tongue is also supposed to be a very powerful tonic or strengthening medicine for weakly children. It is cooked, pounded up, and a small quantity administered in milk or water. When a tiger has been killed the Gonds and Korkus will singe off his whiskers, as they think this will prevent the tiger’s spirit from haunting them. Another idea is that the whiskers if chopped up and mixed in the food of an enemy will poison him. They frequently object to touch a man who has been injured or mauled by a tiger, as they think that to do so would bring down the tiger’s vengeance on them. And in some places any Gond or Korku who touches a man mauled by a tiger is put temporarily out of caste and has to be purified and give a feast on readmission.9. Funeral rites.The dead are usually buried, two pice being first thrown into the grave to buy the site. The body is laid on its back, naked and with the head pointing to the south.The earth is mixed with briars and thorns while being filled in so as to keep off hyenas, and stones are placed over the grave. No fixed period of mourning is observed, but after the lapse of some days, the deceased’s family or relatives go to the burial-place, taking with them a piece of turmeric. This they cut into strips, and, placing them in a leaf-cup, pour water over them. As the water falls on the tomb, a god is called to witness that this day the dead man’s spirit has been sent to live with the ancestors. The pieces of turmeric are then tied in a cloth which, after receiving an oblation of fowl’s blood, is suspended from the main beam of the house, this being considered the dwelling-place of the departed. This ceremony, called Pitar Miloni, is the first rite for the admission of the deceased with the spirits of his ancestors, and is preliminary to the final ceremony of Sedoli which may be performed at any time between four months and fifteen years after the death. But until it is complete the spirit of the deceased has not been laid finally to rest and has the power of sending aches and pains to molest the bodies of its living relatives. Each sept has a place in which the Sedoli rites must be performed, and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he must return there to set his father’s spirit at rest and enable it to join the ancestral ghosts. When the Sedoli is to be performed an unblemished teak orsalai16tree is selected and wrapped round with a thread, while seven circuits of it are made and a bottle of liquor and two pice are offered as purchase money. It is then cut down and brought home, and from it a smooth stake calledmūndais fashioned, 24 to 30 inches high, and squared or pointed at the top, often being arrow-headed. On it are carved representations of the sun and moon, a spider and a human ear, and below these a figure representing the principal person in whose honour the stake is erected, on horseback with weapons in his hand. The proper method is to have onemūndafor each ancestor, but poor persons make one do for several and their figures are then carved below. But care must be taken that the total number of figures representing the dead does not exceed that of themembers of the family who have died during the period for which the Sedoli is performed. For in that case another person is likely to die for each extra figure. The little bags of turmeric representing the ancestors are then taken from the main beam of the house and carried with themūndato the burial-place. There a goat is sacrificed and these articles are besmeared with its blood, after which a feast is held accompanied by singing and dancing. Next day the party again go to the burial-place and plant themūndain it, placing two pice in the hole beneath it. They then proceed to the riverside, and, making a little ball from the flesh of the sacrificed animal, place it together with the bags of turmeric on a leaf platter, and throw the whole into the river saying, ‘Ancestors, find your home.’ If the ball sinks at once they consider that the ancestors have been successful, but if any delay takes place, they attribute it to the difficulty experienced by the ancestors in the selection of a home and throw in two pice to assist them. The pith of a bamboo may be substituted for turmeric to represent the bones. The dead are supposed to inhabit a village of their own similar to that in which they dwelt on earth and to lead there a colourless existence devoid alike of pleasure and of pain.10. Appearance and social customs.The following description of the Korkus is given by Major Forsyth in the Nimār Settlement Report of 1868–69, with the addition of some remarks made by other observers. The Korkus are well built and muscular. The average Korku has a round face, a nose rather wide but not flat like a negro’s, prominent cheek-bones, a scanty moustache and his head shaved after the Hindu fashion. They are slightly taller than the Gond, a shade darker and a good many shades dirtier. In the wilder parts one may come across some quite too awful Korkus, from whom an intervening space of fifty yards is an insufficient protection, though strange to say there are no less than six words in their language which mean ‘to wash’; one to wash the whole body, one the limbs, one for the face, one for the mouth, one for the hair and one for the clothes, besides a word for scouring the body with a stone and another word for bathing in a stream. Their habitations on the otherhand present quite a contrast to their individual want of cleanliness. They build their villages of a close bamboo wattle-work and with almost Swisslike neatness, a picturesque site being usually chosen, and the plan being one long street with a wide open roadway, or several such parallel with each other. The villages are kept remarkably clean, in striking contrast to the habitations of other aboriginal tribes. The average village contains about twenty huts, and it is the custom to bind these so closely together that forest fires often sweep through a whole village before a hut can be removed to check their course. The average hut is about fifteen feet square with a rather flat roof covered with loose grass over a layer of leaves and pressed down by outside poles. No nails are required as the posts are bound firmly together with bamboo or creeper fibre. The inmates generally sleep on the ground, and a few low stools carved from teak wood serve them for pillows. Every village has a few pigs and fowls running about, both of which are eaten after being sacrificed. The Korku is an adept in the crude process of distillation in which the only apparatus required consists of twogharasor earthen pots, a hollow bamboo, some mahua flowers, water and a fire. By this means the Korku manages to produce liquor upon which he can effectually get drunk. They are by no means particular about what they eat. Fowls, pork, fish, crabs and tortoise are all consumed, and beef and rats are eaten in some localities but not in others. The Rūma and Bondoya Korkus eat buffaloes, and the latter add monkeys to an already comprehensive dietary. The lowest caste with whom they are said to eat are Kolis. They do not eat with Gonds. Gonds, Māngs, Basors and a few other low castes take food from them and also, it is said, Bhīls. The Korkus will freely admit members of the higher castes into the community, and a woman incurs no social penalty for aliaisonwith a member of any caste from which a Korku can take food. But if she goes wrong with a low-caste man she is permanently expelled and a fine of Rs. 40 is exacted from the parents before they are readmitted to social intercourse. In the case of adultery with a member of the caste, if the husband does not wish to keep his wife, theoffending parties have a lock of hair cut off and give a dinner, and are then considered to be married. But if the husband does not turn his wife away, he, on his wife’s account, and the seducer must give a joint dinner to the caste. They have a tribal council orpanchāyatwhich inflicts the usual penalties for social offences, while in very serious cases, such as intercourse with a low caste, it causes the offender to be born again. He is placed inside a large earthen pot which is sealed up, and when taken out of this he is said to be born again from his mother’s womb. He is then buried in sand and comes out as a fresh incarnation from the earth, placed in a grass hut which is fired, and from within which he runs out as it is burning, immersed in water, and finally has a tuft cut from his scalp-lock and is fined two and a half rupees. The Korkus as a race are very poor, and a poor Korku manages to exist with even less clothing than a poor Gond. A loincloth of the scantiest and a wisp of turban coiled on the top of the head and leaving the centre of the skull uncovered form his complete costume for dry weather. Sometimes a large brass chain is worn in the turban or attached to the waist, and to it are suspended a flint and steel and a small dry gourd full of cotton—the implements for obtaining fire. It is also common to wear a large brass ring in one ear. A special habit of the Korku in Nimār, Major Forsyth states, is to carry a small bamboo flute behind the ear like a pen, from which he discourses a not unpleasant strain, chiefly when drunk or engaged in propitiating Bāgh Deo, Devi or any other dread power whom he reverences. The women as a rule wear only a dirty whitesāriand are loaded with cheap ornaments. Necklaces of beads are worn on the neck, covering the chest, while the arms and legs are weighed down with brass and iron.11. Character.Like most hill tribes the Korkus are remarkably honest and truthful, slow at calculation and very indignant at being cheated. They are very improvident and great drunkards, and it is the latter habit which has aggravated the obstacles to their improvement.12. Inheritance.The Korku law of inheritance differs somewhat from that of the Hindus. Among them a grandson does notinherit the property of his grandfather unless it is openly and clearly granted to him during the latter’s lifetime. A married son living separately from his father has no right of succession to the paternal property, but if he is unmarried, he receives half the share of a son who is living with his father. A daughter or a daughter’s son does not inherit the father’s property unless it is granted to either of them by a deed of gift. The sons and mother share equally.13. Occupation.The Korkus formerly lived principally by hunting, and practised the shifting cultivation in the forests which is now forbidden. Very few of them are landowners, but some large zamīndāri estates in Hoshangābād and Chhindwāra are held by Korku proprietors, who are protected by the prohibition of alienation. Though too improvident and lazy to be good cultivators, they are in great request as farmservants and ploughmen, being too honest to defraud their master of labour or material. A remarkable change has thus taken place from their former character of notorious robbers. They cultivate mainly in the hilly tracts and grow light grains, though some have colonised the waste lands of the upper Tapti valley in Nimār and raise good crops of wheat. They do not as a rule keep cattle other than the few oxen required for cultivating the soil and hauling out timber. Game of all kinds is caught by means of heavy log traps for the larger varieties such as sāmbhar, bear and spotted deer and even leopard; while hares, jungle-fowl and the smaller sort of game are caught under heavy stones held up by nicely adjusted strings. Occasionally, when in search of meat, a whole village will sally out into the forest. Theshikārihas generally a matchlock concealed in some hiding-place in the jungle, and once he is posted the others beat towards him and any animal that turns up is shot at. In the hot weather the water-hole and the bow and arrow play no small part in helping to fill the Korku larder. Another method of catching birds is to spread the pounded fruit of a certain parasitic airplant on a rock. A thick shining gum exudes which so entangles the feet of the smaller birds as to prevent their escape. Fish dams are built when the water subsides after the rains, and a cylindrical basket six or eight feet in length beingadjusted at the outlet, the fish are driven into this from above. During the hot season the fruit of theghetuis thrown into the pools, and this stupefies the fish and causes them to float on the surface of the water, where they are easily caught.14. Language.The Korkus have a language of their own which belongs to the Kolarian or Munda sub-family. Dr. Grierson says of it: “The Munda, sometimes called the Kolarian family, is probably the older branch of the Dravido-Munda languages. It exhibits the characteristics of an agglutinative language to an extraordinarily complete degree.” In the Central Provinces nearly 90 per cent of Korkus were returned as speaking their own language in 1911. Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “The language is in a state of decay and transition, and Hindi and Marāthi terms have crept into its vocabulary. But very few Gondi words have been adopted. A grammar of the Korku language by Drake has been printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta.”

List of Paragraphs1.Distribution and origin.2.Tribal legends.3.Tribal subdivisions.4.Marriage. Betrothal.5.The marriage ceremony.6.Religion.7.The Bhumka.8.Magical practices.9.Funeral rites.10.Appearance and social customs.11.Character.12.Inheritance.13.Occupation.14.Language.

List of Paragraphs1.Distribution and origin.2.Tribal legends.3.Tribal subdivisions.4.Marriage. Betrothal.5.The marriage ceremony.6.Religion.7.The Bhumka.8.Magical practices.9.Funeral rites.10.Appearance and social customs.11.Character.12.Inheritance.13.Occupation.14.Language.

1. Distribution and origin.Korku.1—A Munda or a Kolarian tribe akin to the Korwas, with whom they have been identified in the India Census of 1901. They number about 150,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, and belong to the west of the Satpūra plateau, residing only in the Hoshangābād, Nimār, Betūl and Chhindwāra Districts. About 30,000 Korkus dwell in the Berār plain adjoining the Satpūras, and a few thousand belong to Bhopāl. The word Korku means simply ‘men’ or ‘tribesmen,’korubeing their term for a man andkūa plural termination. The tribe have a language of their own, which resembles that of the Kols of Chota Nāgpur. The language of the Korwas, another Munda tribe found in Chota Nāgpur, is also known as Korakū or Korkū, and one of their subcastes has the same name.2Some Korkus or Mowāsis are found in Chota Nāgpur, and Colonel Dalton considered them a branch of the Korwas. Another argument may be adduced from the sept names of the Korkuswhich are in many cases identical with those of the Kols and Korwas. There is little reason to doubt then that the Korkus are the same tribe as the Korwas, and both of these may be taken to be offshoots of the great Kol or Munda tribe. The Korkus have come much further west than their kinsmen, and between their residence on the Mahādeo or western Satpūra hills and the Korwas and Kols, there lies a large expanse mainly peopled by the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes, though with a considerable sprinkling of Kols in Mandla, Jubbulpore and Bilāspur. These latter may have immigrated in comparatively recent times, but the Kolis of Bombay may not improbably be another offshoot of the Kols, who with the Korkus came west at a period before the commencement of authentic history.3One of the largest subdivisions of the Korkus is termed Mowāsi, and this name is sometimes applied to the whole tribe, while the tract of country where they dwell was formerly known as the Mowās. Numerous derivations of this term have been given, and the one commonly accepted is that it signifies ‘The troubled country,’ and was applied to the hills at the time when bands of Koli or Korku freebooters, often led by dispossessed Rājpūt chieftains, harried the rich lowlands of Berār from their hill forts on the Satpūras, exacting from the Marāthas, with poetical justice, the payments known as ‘Tankha Mowāsi’ for the ransom of the settled and peaceful villages of the plains. The fact, however, that the Korkus found in Chota Nāgpur are also known as Mowāsi militates against this supposition, for if the name was applied only to the Korkus of the Satpūra plateau it would hardly have travelled as far east as Chota Nāgpur. Mr. Hislop derived it from the mahua tree. But at any rate Mowāsi meant a robber to Marātha ears, and the forests of Kalībhīt and Melghāt are known as the Mowās.Korkus of the Melghāt hillsKorkus of the Melghāt hills

1. Distribution and origin.

Korku.1—A Munda or a Kolarian tribe akin to the Korwas, with whom they have been identified in the India Census of 1901. They number about 150,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, and belong to the west of the Satpūra plateau, residing only in the Hoshangābād, Nimār, Betūl and Chhindwāra Districts. About 30,000 Korkus dwell in the Berār plain adjoining the Satpūras, and a few thousand belong to Bhopāl. The word Korku means simply ‘men’ or ‘tribesmen,’korubeing their term for a man andkūa plural termination. The tribe have a language of their own, which resembles that of the Kols of Chota Nāgpur. The language of the Korwas, another Munda tribe found in Chota Nāgpur, is also known as Korakū or Korkū, and one of their subcastes has the same name.2Some Korkus or Mowāsis are found in Chota Nāgpur, and Colonel Dalton considered them a branch of the Korwas. Another argument may be adduced from the sept names of the Korkuswhich are in many cases identical with those of the Kols and Korwas. There is little reason to doubt then that the Korkus are the same tribe as the Korwas, and both of these may be taken to be offshoots of the great Kol or Munda tribe. The Korkus have come much further west than their kinsmen, and between their residence on the Mahādeo or western Satpūra hills and the Korwas and Kols, there lies a large expanse mainly peopled by the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes, though with a considerable sprinkling of Kols in Mandla, Jubbulpore and Bilāspur. These latter may have immigrated in comparatively recent times, but the Kolis of Bombay may not improbably be another offshoot of the Kols, who with the Korkus came west at a period before the commencement of authentic history.3One of the largest subdivisions of the Korkus is termed Mowāsi, and this name is sometimes applied to the whole tribe, while the tract of country where they dwell was formerly known as the Mowās. Numerous derivations of this term have been given, and the one commonly accepted is that it signifies ‘The troubled country,’ and was applied to the hills at the time when bands of Koli or Korku freebooters, often led by dispossessed Rājpūt chieftains, harried the rich lowlands of Berār from their hill forts on the Satpūras, exacting from the Marāthas, with poetical justice, the payments known as ‘Tankha Mowāsi’ for the ransom of the settled and peaceful villages of the plains. The fact, however, that the Korkus found in Chota Nāgpur are also known as Mowāsi militates against this supposition, for if the name was applied only to the Korkus of the Satpūra plateau it would hardly have travelled as far east as Chota Nāgpur. Mr. Hislop derived it from the mahua tree. But at any rate Mowāsi meant a robber to Marātha ears, and the forests of Kalībhīt and Melghāt are known as the Mowās.Korkus of the Melghāt hillsKorkus of the Melghāt hills

Korku.1—A Munda or a Kolarian tribe akin to the Korwas, with whom they have been identified in the India Census of 1901. They number about 150,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, and belong to the west of the Satpūra plateau, residing only in the Hoshangābād, Nimār, Betūl and Chhindwāra Districts. About 30,000 Korkus dwell in the Berār plain adjoining the Satpūras, and a few thousand belong to Bhopāl. The word Korku means simply ‘men’ or ‘tribesmen,’korubeing their term for a man andkūa plural termination. The tribe have a language of their own, which resembles that of the Kols of Chota Nāgpur. The language of the Korwas, another Munda tribe found in Chota Nāgpur, is also known as Korakū or Korkū, and one of their subcastes has the same name.2Some Korkus or Mowāsis are found in Chota Nāgpur, and Colonel Dalton considered them a branch of the Korwas. Another argument may be adduced from the sept names of the Korkuswhich are in many cases identical with those of the Kols and Korwas. There is little reason to doubt then that the Korkus are the same tribe as the Korwas, and both of these may be taken to be offshoots of the great Kol or Munda tribe. The Korkus have come much further west than their kinsmen, and between their residence on the Mahādeo or western Satpūra hills and the Korwas and Kols, there lies a large expanse mainly peopled by the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes, though with a considerable sprinkling of Kols in Mandla, Jubbulpore and Bilāspur. These latter may have immigrated in comparatively recent times, but the Kolis of Bombay may not improbably be another offshoot of the Kols, who with the Korkus came west at a period before the commencement of authentic history.3One of the largest subdivisions of the Korkus is termed Mowāsi, and this name is sometimes applied to the whole tribe, while the tract of country where they dwell was formerly known as the Mowās. Numerous derivations of this term have been given, and the one commonly accepted is that it signifies ‘The troubled country,’ and was applied to the hills at the time when bands of Koli or Korku freebooters, often led by dispossessed Rājpūt chieftains, harried the rich lowlands of Berār from their hill forts on the Satpūras, exacting from the Marāthas, with poetical justice, the payments known as ‘Tankha Mowāsi’ for the ransom of the settled and peaceful villages of the plains. The fact, however, that the Korkus found in Chota Nāgpur are also known as Mowāsi militates against this supposition, for if the name was applied only to the Korkus of the Satpūra plateau it would hardly have travelled as far east as Chota Nāgpur. Mr. Hislop derived it from the mahua tree. But at any rate Mowāsi meant a robber to Marātha ears, and the forests of Kalībhīt and Melghāt are known as the Mowās.

Korkus of the Melghāt hillsKorkus of the Melghāt hills

Korkus of the Melghāt hills

2. Tribal legends.According to their own traditions the Korkus like so many other early people were born from the soil. They state that Rāwan, the demon king of Ceylon, observed that the Vindhyan and Satpūra ranges were uninhabited and besought Mahādeo4to populate them. Mahādeo despatched his messenger, the crow Kāgeshwar, to find for him an ant-hillmade of red earth, and the crow discovered such an ant-hill between the Saolīgarh and Bhānwargarh ranges of Betūl. Mahādeo went to the place, and, taking a handful of red earth, made images in the form of a man and a woman, but immediately two fiery horses sent by Indra rose from the earth and trampled the images to dust. For two days Mahādeo persisted in his attempts, but as often as the images were made they were destroyed in a similar manner. But at length the god made an image of a dog and breathed into it the breath of life, and this dog kept off the horses of Indra. Mahādeo then made again his two images of a man and woman, and giving them human life, called them Mūla and Mūlai with the surname of Pothre, and these two became the ancestors of the Korku tribe. Mahādeo then created various plants for their use, themahul5from whose strong and fibrous leaves they could make aprons and head-coverings, the wild plantain whose leaves would afford other clothing, and the mahua, thechironji, thesewanandkullu6to provide them with food. Time went on and Mūla and Mūlai had children, and being dissatisfied with their condition as compared with that of their neighbours, besought Mahādeo to visit them once more. When he appeared Mūla asked the god to give him grain to eat such as he had heard of elsewhere on the earth. Mahādeo sent the crow Kāgeshwar to look for grain, and he found it stored in the house of a Māng named Japre who lived at some distance within the hills. Japre on hearing what was required besought the honour of a visit from the god himself. Mahādeo went, and Japre laid before him an offering of 12khandis7of grain, 12 goats and 12 buckets of water, and invited Mahādeo to eat and drink. The god was pleased with the offering and unwilling to reject it, but considered that he could not eat food defiled by the touch of the outcaste Māng, so Pārvati created the giant Bhīmsen and bade him eat up the food offered to Mahādeo. When Bhīmsen had finished the offering, however, it occurred to him that he also had been defiled by taking food from aMāng, and in revenge he destroyed Japre’s house and covered the site of it with débris and dirt. Japre then complained to Mahādeo of this sorry requital of his offering and prayed to have his house restored to him. Bhīmsen was ordered to do this, and agreed to comply on condition that Mūla should pay to him the same honour and worship as he accorded to Rāwan, the demon king. Mūla promised to do so, and Bhīmsen then sent the crow Kāgeshwar to the tank Daldal, bidding him bring thence the pig Buddu, who being brought was ordered to eat up all the dirt that covered Japre’s house. Buddu demurred except on condition that he also should be worshipped by Mūla and his descendants for ever. Mūla agreed to pay worship to him every third year, whereupon Buddu ate up all the dirt, and dying from the effects received the name of Mahābissum, under which he is worshipped to the present day. Mahādeo then took some seed from the Māng and planted it for Mūla’s use, and from it sprang the seven grains—kodon,kutki,gurgi,mandgi,barai,rālaanddhān8which the Korkus principally cultivate. It may be noticed that the story ingeniously accounts for and sheds as it were an orthodox sanction on the custom of the Korkus of worshipping the pig and the local demon Bhīmsen, who is placed on a sort of level with Rāwan, the opponent of Rāma. After recounting the above story Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “This legend given by the Korkus of their creation bears a curious analogy to our own belief as set forth in the Old Testament. They even give the tradition of a flood, in which a crow plays the part of Noah’s dove. There is a most curious similarity between their belief in this respect and that found in such distant and widely separated parts as Otaheite and Siberia. Remembering our own name ‘Adam,’ which I believe means in Hebrew ‘made of red earth,’ it is curious to observe the stress that is laid in the legend on the necessity for finding red earth for the making of man.” Another story told by the Korkus with the object of providing themselves with Rājpūt ancestry is to the effect that their forefathers dwelt in the city of Dhārānagar, the modern Dhār. It happened one day thatthey were out hunting and followed asāmbharstag, which fled on and on until it finally came to the Mahādeo or Pachmarhi hills and entered a cave. The hunters remained at the mouth waiting for the stag to come out, when a hermit appeared and gave them a handful of rice. This they at once cooked and ate as they were hungry from their long journey, and they found to their surprise that the rice sufficed for the whole party to eat their fill. The hermit then told them that he was the god Mahādeo, and had assumed the form of a stag in order to lead them to these hills, where they were to settle and worship him. They obeyed the command of the god, and a Korku zamīndār is still the hereditary guardian of Mahādeo’s shrine at Pachmarhi. This story has of course no historical value, and the Korkus have simply stolen the city of Dhārānagar for their ancestral home from their neighbours the Bhoyars and Panwārs. These castes relate similar stories, which may in their case be founded on fact.

2. Tribal legends.

According to their own traditions the Korkus like so many other early people were born from the soil. They state that Rāwan, the demon king of Ceylon, observed that the Vindhyan and Satpūra ranges were uninhabited and besought Mahādeo4to populate them. Mahādeo despatched his messenger, the crow Kāgeshwar, to find for him an ant-hillmade of red earth, and the crow discovered such an ant-hill between the Saolīgarh and Bhānwargarh ranges of Betūl. Mahādeo went to the place, and, taking a handful of red earth, made images in the form of a man and a woman, but immediately two fiery horses sent by Indra rose from the earth and trampled the images to dust. For two days Mahādeo persisted in his attempts, but as often as the images were made they were destroyed in a similar manner. But at length the god made an image of a dog and breathed into it the breath of life, and this dog kept off the horses of Indra. Mahādeo then made again his two images of a man and woman, and giving them human life, called them Mūla and Mūlai with the surname of Pothre, and these two became the ancestors of the Korku tribe. Mahādeo then created various plants for their use, themahul5from whose strong and fibrous leaves they could make aprons and head-coverings, the wild plantain whose leaves would afford other clothing, and the mahua, thechironji, thesewanandkullu6to provide them with food. Time went on and Mūla and Mūlai had children, and being dissatisfied with their condition as compared with that of their neighbours, besought Mahādeo to visit them once more. When he appeared Mūla asked the god to give him grain to eat such as he had heard of elsewhere on the earth. Mahādeo sent the crow Kāgeshwar to look for grain, and he found it stored in the house of a Māng named Japre who lived at some distance within the hills. Japre on hearing what was required besought the honour of a visit from the god himself. Mahādeo went, and Japre laid before him an offering of 12khandis7of grain, 12 goats and 12 buckets of water, and invited Mahādeo to eat and drink. The god was pleased with the offering and unwilling to reject it, but considered that he could not eat food defiled by the touch of the outcaste Māng, so Pārvati created the giant Bhīmsen and bade him eat up the food offered to Mahādeo. When Bhīmsen had finished the offering, however, it occurred to him that he also had been defiled by taking food from aMāng, and in revenge he destroyed Japre’s house and covered the site of it with débris and dirt. Japre then complained to Mahādeo of this sorry requital of his offering and prayed to have his house restored to him. Bhīmsen was ordered to do this, and agreed to comply on condition that Mūla should pay to him the same honour and worship as he accorded to Rāwan, the demon king. Mūla promised to do so, and Bhīmsen then sent the crow Kāgeshwar to the tank Daldal, bidding him bring thence the pig Buddu, who being brought was ordered to eat up all the dirt that covered Japre’s house. Buddu demurred except on condition that he also should be worshipped by Mūla and his descendants for ever. Mūla agreed to pay worship to him every third year, whereupon Buddu ate up all the dirt, and dying from the effects received the name of Mahābissum, under which he is worshipped to the present day. Mahādeo then took some seed from the Māng and planted it for Mūla’s use, and from it sprang the seven grains—kodon,kutki,gurgi,mandgi,barai,rālaanddhān8which the Korkus principally cultivate. It may be noticed that the story ingeniously accounts for and sheds as it were an orthodox sanction on the custom of the Korkus of worshipping the pig and the local demon Bhīmsen, who is placed on a sort of level with Rāwan, the opponent of Rāma. After recounting the above story Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “This legend given by the Korkus of their creation bears a curious analogy to our own belief as set forth in the Old Testament. They even give the tradition of a flood, in which a crow plays the part of Noah’s dove. There is a most curious similarity between their belief in this respect and that found in such distant and widely separated parts as Otaheite and Siberia. Remembering our own name ‘Adam,’ which I believe means in Hebrew ‘made of red earth,’ it is curious to observe the stress that is laid in the legend on the necessity for finding red earth for the making of man.” Another story told by the Korkus with the object of providing themselves with Rājpūt ancestry is to the effect that their forefathers dwelt in the city of Dhārānagar, the modern Dhār. It happened one day thatthey were out hunting and followed asāmbharstag, which fled on and on until it finally came to the Mahādeo or Pachmarhi hills and entered a cave. The hunters remained at the mouth waiting for the stag to come out, when a hermit appeared and gave them a handful of rice. This they at once cooked and ate as they were hungry from their long journey, and they found to their surprise that the rice sufficed for the whole party to eat their fill. The hermit then told them that he was the god Mahādeo, and had assumed the form of a stag in order to lead them to these hills, where they were to settle and worship him. They obeyed the command of the god, and a Korku zamīndār is still the hereditary guardian of Mahādeo’s shrine at Pachmarhi. This story has of course no historical value, and the Korkus have simply stolen the city of Dhārānagar for their ancestral home from their neighbours the Bhoyars and Panwārs. These castes relate similar stories, which may in their case be founded on fact.

According to their own traditions the Korkus like so many other early people were born from the soil. They state that Rāwan, the demon king of Ceylon, observed that the Vindhyan and Satpūra ranges were uninhabited and besought Mahādeo4to populate them. Mahādeo despatched his messenger, the crow Kāgeshwar, to find for him an ant-hillmade of red earth, and the crow discovered such an ant-hill between the Saolīgarh and Bhānwargarh ranges of Betūl. Mahādeo went to the place, and, taking a handful of red earth, made images in the form of a man and a woman, but immediately two fiery horses sent by Indra rose from the earth and trampled the images to dust. For two days Mahādeo persisted in his attempts, but as often as the images were made they were destroyed in a similar manner. But at length the god made an image of a dog and breathed into it the breath of life, and this dog kept off the horses of Indra. Mahādeo then made again his two images of a man and woman, and giving them human life, called them Mūla and Mūlai with the surname of Pothre, and these two became the ancestors of the Korku tribe. Mahādeo then created various plants for their use, themahul5from whose strong and fibrous leaves they could make aprons and head-coverings, the wild plantain whose leaves would afford other clothing, and the mahua, thechironji, thesewanandkullu6to provide them with food. Time went on and Mūla and Mūlai had children, and being dissatisfied with their condition as compared with that of their neighbours, besought Mahādeo to visit them once more. When he appeared Mūla asked the god to give him grain to eat such as he had heard of elsewhere on the earth. Mahādeo sent the crow Kāgeshwar to look for grain, and he found it stored in the house of a Māng named Japre who lived at some distance within the hills. Japre on hearing what was required besought the honour of a visit from the god himself. Mahādeo went, and Japre laid before him an offering of 12khandis7of grain, 12 goats and 12 buckets of water, and invited Mahādeo to eat and drink. The god was pleased with the offering and unwilling to reject it, but considered that he could not eat food defiled by the touch of the outcaste Māng, so Pārvati created the giant Bhīmsen and bade him eat up the food offered to Mahādeo. When Bhīmsen had finished the offering, however, it occurred to him that he also had been defiled by taking food from aMāng, and in revenge he destroyed Japre’s house and covered the site of it with débris and dirt. Japre then complained to Mahādeo of this sorry requital of his offering and prayed to have his house restored to him. Bhīmsen was ordered to do this, and agreed to comply on condition that Mūla should pay to him the same honour and worship as he accorded to Rāwan, the demon king. Mūla promised to do so, and Bhīmsen then sent the crow Kāgeshwar to the tank Daldal, bidding him bring thence the pig Buddu, who being brought was ordered to eat up all the dirt that covered Japre’s house. Buddu demurred except on condition that he also should be worshipped by Mūla and his descendants for ever. Mūla agreed to pay worship to him every third year, whereupon Buddu ate up all the dirt, and dying from the effects received the name of Mahābissum, under which he is worshipped to the present day. Mahādeo then took some seed from the Māng and planted it for Mūla’s use, and from it sprang the seven grains—kodon,kutki,gurgi,mandgi,barai,rālaanddhān8which the Korkus principally cultivate. It may be noticed that the story ingeniously accounts for and sheds as it were an orthodox sanction on the custom of the Korkus of worshipping the pig and the local demon Bhīmsen, who is placed on a sort of level with Rāwan, the opponent of Rāma. After recounting the above story Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “This legend given by the Korkus of their creation bears a curious analogy to our own belief as set forth in the Old Testament. They even give the tradition of a flood, in which a crow plays the part of Noah’s dove. There is a most curious similarity between their belief in this respect and that found in such distant and widely separated parts as Otaheite and Siberia. Remembering our own name ‘Adam,’ which I believe means in Hebrew ‘made of red earth,’ it is curious to observe the stress that is laid in the legend on the necessity for finding red earth for the making of man.” Another story told by the Korkus with the object of providing themselves with Rājpūt ancestry is to the effect that their forefathers dwelt in the city of Dhārānagar, the modern Dhār. It happened one day thatthey were out hunting and followed asāmbharstag, which fled on and on until it finally came to the Mahādeo or Pachmarhi hills and entered a cave. The hunters remained at the mouth waiting for the stag to come out, when a hermit appeared and gave them a handful of rice. This they at once cooked and ate as they were hungry from their long journey, and they found to their surprise that the rice sufficed for the whole party to eat their fill. The hermit then told them that he was the god Mahādeo, and had assumed the form of a stag in order to lead them to these hills, where they were to settle and worship him. They obeyed the command of the god, and a Korku zamīndār is still the hereditary guardian of Mahādeo’s shrine at Pachmarhi. This story has of course no historical value, and the Korkus have simply stolen the city of Dhārānagar for their ancestral home from their neighbours the Bhoyars and Panwārs. These castes relate similar stories, which may in their case be founded on fact.

3. Tribal subdivisions.As is usual among the forest tribes the Korkus formerly had a subdivision called Rāj-Korkū, who were made up of landowning members of the caste and were admitted to rank among those from whom a Brāhman would take water, while in some cases a spurious Rājpūt ancestry was devised for them, as in the story given above. The remainder of the tribe were called Potharia, or those to whom a certain dirty habit is imputed. These main divisions have, however, become more or less obsolete, and have been supplanted by four subcastes with territorial names, Mowāsi, Bāwaria, Rūma and Bondoya. The meaning of the term Mowāsi has already been given, and this subcaste ranks as the highest, probably owing to the gentlemanly calling of armed robbery formerly practised by its members. The Bāwarias are the dwellers in the Bhānwargarh tract of Betūl, the Rūmas those who belong to Bāsim and Gangra in the Amraoti District, and the Bondoyas the residents of the Jītgarh and Pachmarhi tract. These last are also called Bhovadāya and Bhopa, and this name has been corrupted into Bopchi in the Wardha District, a few hundred Bondoya Korkus who live there being known as Bopchi and considered a distinct caste. Except among the Mowāsis, who usually marry intheir own subcaste, the rule of endogamy is not strictly observed. The above description refers to Betūl and Nimār, but in Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite says: “Four-fifths of the Korkus have been so affected by the spread of Brāhmanical influence as to have ceased to differ in any marked way from the Hindu element in the population, and the Korku has become so civilised as to have learnt to be ashamed of being a Korku.” Each subcaste has traditionally 36 exogamous septs, but the numbers have now increased. The sept names are generally taken from those of plants and animals. These were no doubt originally totemistic, but the Korkus now say that the names are derived from trees and other articles in or behind which the ancestors of each sept took refuge after being defeated in a great battle. Thus the ancestor of the Atkul sept hid in a gorge, that of the Bhūri Rāna sept behind a dove’s nest, that of the Dewda sept behind a rice plant, that of the Jāmbu sept behind ajāmuntree,9that of the Kāsada sept in the bed of a river, that of the Tākhar sept behind a cucumber plant, that of the Sakum sept behind a teak tree, and so on. Other names are Banku or a forest-dweller; Bhūrswa or Bhoyar, perhaps from the caste of that name; Basam or Baoria, the god of beehives; and Marskola or Mawāsi, which the Korkus take to mean a field flooded by rain. One sept has the name Killībhasam, and its ancestor is said to have eaten the flesh of a heifer half-devoured by a tiger and parched by a forest fire. In Hoshangābād the legend of the battle is not known, and among the names given by Mr. Crosthwaite are Akandi, the benighted one; Tandil, a rat; and Chuthar, the flying black-bug. In a few cases the names of septs are Hindi or Marāthi words, these perhaps affording a trace of the foundation of separate families by members of other castes. No totemistic usages are followed as a rule, but one curious instance may be given. One sept has the namelobo, which means a piece of cloth. But the wordloboalso signifies ‘to leak.’ If a person says a sentence containing the wordloboin either signification before a member of the sept while he is eating, he will throw away the food before him as if it were contaminated and prepare a meal afresh.Ten of the septs10consider the regular marriage of girls to be inauspicious, and the members of these simply give away their daughters without performing a ceremony.Korku women in full dressKorku women in full dress

3. Tribal subdivisions.

As is usual among the forest tribes the Korkus formerly had a subdivision called Rāj-Korkū, who were made up of landowning members of the caste and were admitted to rank among those from whom a Brāhman would take water, while in some cases a spurious Rājpūt ancestry was devised for them, as in the story given above. The remainder of the tribe were called Potharia, or those to whom a certain dirty habit is imputed. These main divisions have, however, become more or less obsolete, and have been supplanted by four subcastes with territorial names, Mowāsi, Bāwaria, Rūma and Bondoya. The meaning of the term Mowāsi has already been given, and this subcaste ranks as the highest, probably owing to the gentlemanly calling of armed robbery formerly practised by its members. The Bāwarias are the dwellers in the Bhānwargarh tract of Betūl, the Rūmas those who belong to Bāsim and Gangra in the Amraoti District, and the Bondoyas the residents of the Jītgarh and Pachmarhi tract. These last are also called Bhovadāya and Bhopa, and this name has been corrupted into Bopchi in the Wardha District, a few hundred Bondoya Korkus who live there being known as Bopchi and considered a distinct caste. Except among the Mowāsis, who usually marry intheir own subcaste, the rule of endogamy is not strictly observed. The above description refers to Betūl and Nimār, but in Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite says: “Four-fifths of the Korkus have been so affected by the spread of Brāhmanical influence as to have ceased to differ in any marked way from the Hindu element in the population, and the Korku has become so civilised as to have learnt to be ashamed of being a Korku.” Each subcaste has traditionally 36 exogamous septs, but the numbers have now increased. The sept names are generally taken from those of plants and animals. These were no doubt originally totemistic, but the Korkus now say that the names are derived from trees and other articles in or behind which the ancestors of each sept took refuge after being defeated in a great battle. Thus the ancestor of the Atkul sept hid in a gorge, that of the Bhūri Rāna sept behind a dove’s nest, that of the Dewda sept behind a rice plant, that of the Jāmbu sept behind ajāmuntree,9that of the Kāsada sept in the bed of a river, that of the Tākhar sept behind a cucumber plant, that of the Sakum sept behind a teak tree, and so on. Other names are Banku or a forest-dweller; Bhūrswa or Bhoyar, perhaps from the caste of that name; Basam or Baoria, the god of beehives; and Marskola or Mawāsi, which the Korkus take to mean a field flooded by rain. One sept has the name Killībhasam, and its ancestor is said to have eaten the flesh of a heifer half-devoured by a tiger and parched by a forest fire. In Hoshangābād the legend of the battle is not known, and among the names given by Mr. Crosthwaite are Akandi, the benighted one; Tandil, a rat; and Chuthar, the flying black-bug. In a few cases the names of septs are Hindi or Marāthi words, these perhaps affording a trace of the foundation of separate families by members of other castes. No totemistic usages are followed as a rule, but one curious instance may be given. One sept has the namelobo, which means a piece of cloth. But the wordloboalso signifies ‘to leak.’ If a person says a sentence containing the wordloboin either signification before a member of the sept while he is eating, he will throw away the food before him as if it were contaminated and prepare a meal afresh.Ten of the septs10consider the regular marriage of girls to be inauspicious, and the members of these simply give away their daughters without performing a ceremony.Korku women in full dressKorku women in full dress

As is usual among the forest tribes the Korkus formerly had a subdivision called Rāj-Korkū, who were made up of landowning members of the caste and were admitted to rank among those from whom a Brāhman would take water, while in some cases a spurious Rājpūt ancestry was devised for them, as in the story given above. The remainder of the tribe were called Potharia, or those to whom a certain dirty habit is imputed. These main divisions have, however, become more or less obsolete, and have been supplanted by four subcastes with territorial names, Mowāsi, Bāwaria, Rūma and Bondoya. The meaning of the term Mowāsi has already been given, and this subcaste ranks as the highest, probably owing to the gentlemanly calling of armed robbery formerly practised by its members. The Bāwarias are the dwellers in the Bhānwargarh tract of Betūl, the Rūmas those who belong to Bāsim and Gangra in the Amraoti District, and the Bondoyas the residents of the Jītgarh and Pachmarhi tract. These last are also called Bhovadāya and Bhopa, and this name has been corrupted into Bopchi in the Wardha District, a few hundred Bondoya Korkus who live there being known as Bopchi and considered a distinct caste. Except among the Mowāsis, who usually marry intheir own subcaste, the rule of endogamy is not strictly observed. The above description refers to Betūl and Nimār, but in Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite says: “Four-fifths of the Korkus have been so affected by the spread of Brāhmanical influence as to have ceased to differ in any marked way from the Hindu element in the population, and the Korku has become so civilised as to have learnt to be ashamed of being a Korku.” Each subcaste has traditionally 36 exogamous septs, but the numbers have now increased. The sept names are generally taken from those of plants and animals. These were no doubt originally totemistic, but the Korkus now say that the names are derived from trees and other articles in or behind which the ancestors of each sept took refuge after being defeated in a great battle. Thus the ancestor of the Atkul sept hid in a gorge, that of the Bhūri Rāna sept behind a dove’s nest, that of the Dewda sept behind a rice plant, that of the Jāmbu sept behind ajāmuntree,9that of the Kāsada sept in the bed of a river, that of the Tākhar sept behind a cucumber plant, that of the Sakum sept behind a teak tree, and so on. Other names are Banku or a forest-dweller; Bhūrswa or Bhoyar, perhaps from the caste of that name; Basam or Baoria, the god of beehives; and Marskola or Mawāsi, which the Korkus take to mean a field flooded by rain. One sept has the name Killībhasam, and its ancestor is said to have eaten the flesh of a heifer half-devoured by a tiger and parched by a forest fire. In Hoshangābād the legend of the battle is not known, and among the names given by Mr. Crosthwaite are Akandi, the benighted one; Tandil, a rat; and Chuthar, the flying black-bug. In a few cases the names of septs are Hindi or Marāthi words, these perhaps affording a trace of the foundation of separate families by members of other castes. No totemistic usages are followed as a rule, but one curious instance may be given. One sept has the namelobo, which means a piece of cloth. But the wordloboalso signifies ‘to leak.’ If a person says a sentence containing the wordloboin either signification before a member of the sept while he is eating, he will throw away the food before him as if it were contaminated and prepare a meal afresh.Ten of the septs10consider the regular marriage of girls to be inauspicious, and the members of these simply give away their daughters without performing a ceremony.

Korku women in full dressKorku women in full dress

Korku women in full dress

4. Marriage Betrothal.Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. The preliminaries to a marriage commence with thebāli-dūdnaor arrangement of the match. The boy’s father having selected a suitable bride for his son sends two elders of the caste to propose the match to her father, who as a matter of etiquette invariably declines it, swearing with great oaths that he will not allow his daughter to get married or that he will have a son-in-law who will serve for her. The messengers depart, but return again and again until the father’s obduracy is overcome, which may take from six months to two years, while from nine to twelve months is considered a respectable period. When his consent is finally obtained the residents of the girl’s village are called to hear it, and the compact is sealed with large potations of liquor. A ceremony of betrothal follows at which thedaijor dowry is arranged, this signifying among the Korkus the compensation to be paid to the girl’s father for the loss of her services. It is computed by a curious system of symbolic higgling. The women of the girl’s party take two plates and place on them two heaps containing respectively ten and fifty seeds of a sort used for reckoning. The ten seeds on the first plate represent five rupees for thepanchāyatand five cloths for the mother, brother, paternal aunt and paternal and maternal uncles of the girl. The heap of fifty seeds indicates that Rs. 50 must be paid to the girl’s father. When the plates are received by the boy’s party they take away forty-five of the seeds from the larger heap and return the plate, to indicate that they will only pay five rupees to the girl’s father. The women add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate again. The men then take away fifteen, thus advancing the bride-price to fifteen rupees. The women again add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate, and the men again take away twenty, and returning the remaining twenty which are taken as the sum agreed upon, in addition to the five cloths andfive rupees for thepanchāyat. The total amount paid averages about Rs. 60. Wealthy men sometimes refuse this payment or exchange a bride for a bridegroom. The dowry should be paid before the wedding, and in default of this the bridegroom’s father is made not a little uncomfortable at that festival. Should a betrothed girl die before marriage, the dowry does not abate and the parents of the girl have a right to stop her burial until it is paid. But if a father shows himself hard to please and refuses eligible offers, or if a daughter has fallen in love, as sometimes happens, she will leave her home quietly some morning and betake herself to the house of the man of her choice. If her young affections have not been engaged, she may select of her own accord a protector whose circumstances and position make him attractive, and preferably one whose mother is dead. Occasionally a girl will install herself in the house of a man who does not want her, and his position then is truly pitiable. He dare not turn her out as he would be punished by the caste for his want of gallantry, and his only course is to vacate his own house and leave her in possession. After a time his relations represent to her that the man she wants has gone on a journey and will not be back for a long time, and induce her to return to the paternal abode. But such a case is very rare.

4. Marriage Betrothal.

Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. The preliminaries to a marriage commence with thebāli-dūdnaor arrangement of the match. The boy’s father having selected a suitable bride for his son sends two elders of the caste to propose the match to her father, who as a matter of etiquette invariably declines it, swearing with great oaths that he will not allow his daughter to get married or that he will have a son-in-law who will serve for her. The messengers depart, but return again and again until the father’s obduracy is overcome, which may take from six months to two years, while from nine to twelve months is considered a respectable period. When his consent is finally obtained the residents of the girl’s village are called to hear it, and the compact is sealed with large potations of liquor. A ceremony of betrothal follows at which thedaijor dowry is arranged, this signifying among the Korkus the compensation to be paid to the girl’s father for the loss of her services. It is computed by a curious system of symbolic higgling. The women of the girl’s party take two plates and place on them two heaps containing respectively ten and fifty seeds of a sort used for reckoning. The ten seeds on the first plate represent five rupees for thepanchāyatand five cloths for the mother, brother, paternal aunt and paternal and maternal uncles of the girl. The heap of fifty seeds indicates that Rs. 50 must be paid to the girl’s father. When the plates are received by the boy’s party they take away forty-five of the seeds from the larger heap and return the plate, to indicate that they will only pay five rupees to the girl’s father. The women add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate again. The men then take away fifteen, thus advancing the bride-price to fifteen rupees. The women again add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate, and the men again take away twenty, and returning the remaining twenty which are taken as the sum agreed upon, in addition to the five cloths andfive rupees for thepanchāyat. The total amount paid averages about Rs. 60. Wealthy men sometimes refuse this payment or exchange a bride for a bridegroom. The dowry should be paid before the wedding, and in default of this the bridegroom’s father is made not a little uncomfortable at that festival. Should a betrothed girl die before marriage, the dowry does not abate and the parents of the girl have a right to stop her burial until it is paid. But if a father shows himself hard to please and refuses eligible offers, or if a daughter has fallen in love, as sometimes happens, she will leave her home quietly some morning and betake herself to the house of the man of her choice. If her young affections have not been engaged, she may select of her own accord a protector whose circumstances and position make him attractive, and preferably one whose mother is dead. Occasionally a girl will install herself in the house of a man who does not want her, and his position then is truly pitiable. He dare not turn her out as he would be punished by the caste for his want of gallantry, and his only course is to vacate his own house and leave her in possession. After a time his relations represent to her that the man she wants has gone on a journey and will not be back for a long time, and induce her to return to the paternal abode. But such a case is very rare.

Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. The preliminaries to a marriage commence with thebāli-dūdnaor arrangement of the match. The boy’s father having selected a suitable bride for his son sends two elders of the caste to propose the match to her father, who as a matter of etiquette invariably declines it, swearing with great oaths that he will not allow his daughter to get married or that he will have a son-in-law who will serve for her. The messengers depart, but return again and again until the father’s obduracy is overcome, which may take from six months to two years, while from nine to twelve months is considered a respectable period. When his consent is finally obtained the residents of the girl’s village are called to hear it, and the compact is sealed with large potations of liquor. A ceremony of betrothal follows at which thedaijor dowry is arranged, this signifying among the Korkus the compensation to be paid to the girl’s father for the loss of her services. It is computed by a curious system of symbolic higgling. The women of the girl’s party take two plates and place on them two heaps containing respectively ten and fifty seeds of a sort used for reckoning. The ten seeds on the first plate represent five rupees for thepanchāyatand five cloths for the mother, brother, paternal aunt and paternal and maternal uncles of the girl. The heap of fifty seeds indicates that Rs. 50 must be paid to the girl’s father. When the plates are received by the boy’s party they take away forty-five of the seeds from the larger heap and return the plate, to indicate that they will only pay five rupees to the girl’s father. The women add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate again. The men then take away fifteen, thus advancing the bride-price to fifteen rupees. The women again add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate, and the men again take away twenty, and returning the remaining twenty which are taken as the sum agreed upon, in addition to the five cloths andfive rupees for thepanchāyat. The total amount paid averages about Rs. 60. Wealthy men sometimes refuse this payment or exchange a bride for a bridegroom. The dowry should be paid before the wedding, and in default of this the bridegroom’s father is made not a little uncomfortable at that festival. Should a betrothed girl die before marriage, the dowry does not abate and the parents of the girl have a right to stop her burial until it is paid. But if a father shows himself hard to please and refuses eligible offers, or if a daughter has fallen in love, as sometimes happens, she will leave her home quietly some morning and betake herself to the house of the man of her choice. If her young affections have not been engaged, she may select of her own accord a protector whose circumstances and position make him attractive, and preferably one whose mother is dead. Occasionally a girl will install herself in the house of a man who does not want her, and his position then is truly pitiable. He dare not turn her out as he would be punished by the caste for his want of gallantry, and his only course is to vacate his own house and leave her in possession. After a time his relations represent to her that the man she wants has gone on a journey and will not be back for a long time, and induce her to return to the paternal abode. But such a case is very rare.

5. The marriage ceremony.The marriage ceremony resembles that of the Hindus but has one or two special features. After the customary cleaning of the house which should be performed on a Tuesday, the bridegroom is carried to the heap of stones which represents Mutua Deo, and there the Bhumka or priest invokes the various sylvan deities, offering to them the blood of chickens. Again when he is dressed for the wedding the boy is given a knife or dagger carrying a pierced lemon on the blade, and he and his parents and relatives proceed to aber11or wild plum tree. The boy and his parents sit at the foot of the tree and are tied to it with a thread, while the Bhumka again spills the blood of a fowl on the roots of the tree and invokes the sun and moon, whom the Korkus consider to be their ultimate ancestors. Theberfruit may perhaps be selected as symbolising the red orb of the settingsun. The party then dance round the tree. When the wedding procession is formed the following ceremony takes place: A blanket is spread in the yard of the house and the bridegroom and his elder brother’s wife are made to stand on it and embrace each other seven times. This may probably be a survival of the modified system of polyandry still practised by the Khonds, under which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder brother’s wife until their own marriage. The ceremony would then typify the cessation of this intercourse at the wedding of the boy. The procession must reach the bride’s village on a Monday, a Wednesday or a Friday, a breach of this rule entailing a fine of Rs. 8 on the boy’s father. On arrival at the bride’s village its progress is barred by a rope stretched across the road by the bride’s relatives, who must be given two pice each before it is removed. The bridegroom touches the marriage-shed with a bamboo fan. Next day the couple are seated in the shed and covered with a blanket on to which water is poured to symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. The groom ties a necklace of beads to the girl’s neck, and the couple are then lifted up by the relatives and carried three times round the yard of the house, while they throw yellow-coloured rice at each other. Their clothes are tied together and they proceed to make an offering to Mutua Deo. In Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite states, the marriage ceremony is presided over by the bridegroom’s aunt or other collateral female relative. The bride is hidden in her father’s house. The aunt then enters carrying the bridegroom and searches for the bride. When the bride is found the brother-in-law of the bridegroom takes her up, and bride and bridegroom are then seated under a sheet. The rings worn on the little finger of the right hand are exchanged under the sheet and the clothes of the couple are knotted together. Then follow thesapta padior seven steps round the post, and the ceremony concludes with a dance, a feast and an orgy of drunkenness. A priest takes no part in a Korku marriage ceremony, which is a purely social affair. If a man has only one daughter, or if he requires an assistant for his cultivation, he often makes his prospective son-in-law serve for his wife for a period varying from five to twelve years, the marriage beingthen celebrated at the father-in-law’s expense. If the boy runs away with the girl before the end of his service, his parents have to pay to the girl’s father five rupees for each year of the unexpired term. Marriage is usually adult, girls being wedded between the ages of ten and sixteen and boys at about twenty. Polygamy is freely practised by those who are well enough off to afford it, and instances are known of a man having as many as twelve wives living. A man must not marry his wife’s younger sister if she is the widow of a member of his own sept nor his elder brother’s widow if she is his wife’s elder sister. Widow-marriage is allowed, and divorce may be effected by a simple proclamation of the fact to thepanchāyatin a caste assembly.

5. The marriage ceremony.

The marriage ceremony resembles that of the Hindus but has one or two special features. After the customary cleaning of the house which should be performed on a Tuesday, the bridegroom is carried to the heap of stones which represents Mutua Deo, and there the Bhumka or priest invokes the various sylvan deities, offering to them the blood of chickens. Again when he is dressed for the wedding the boy is given a knife or dagger carrying a pierced lemon on the blade, and he and his parents and relatives proceed to aber11or wild plum tree. The boy and his parents sit at the foot of the tree and are tied to it with a thread, while the Bhumka again spills the blood of a fowl on the roots of the tree and invokes the sun and moon, whom the Korkus consider to be their ultimate ancestors. Theberfruit may perhaps be selected as symbolising the red orb of the settingsun. The party then dance round the tree. When the wedding procession is formed the following ceremony takes place: A blanket is spread in the yard of the house and the bridegroom and his elder brother’s wife are made to stand on it and embrace each other seven times. This may probably be a survival of the modified system of polyandry still practised by the Khonds, under which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder brother’s wife until their own marriage. The ceremony would then typify the cessation of this intercourse at the wedding of the boy. The procession must reach the bride’s village on a Monday, a Wednesday or a Friday, a breach of this rule entailing a fine of Rs. 8 on the boy’s father. On arrival at the bride’s village its progress is barred by a rope stretched across the road by the bride’s relatives, who must be given two pice each before it is removed. The bridegroom touches the marriage-shed with a bamboo fan. Next day the couple are seated in the shed and covered with a blanket on to which water is poured to symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. The groom ties a necklace of beads to the girl’s neck, and the couple are then lifted up by the relatives and carried three times round the yard of the house, while they throw yellow-coloured rice at each other. Their clothes are tied together and they proceed to make an offering to Mutua Deo. In Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite states, the marriage ceremony is presided over by the bridegroom’s aunt or other collateral female relative. The bride is hidden in her father’s house. The aunt then enters carrying the bridegroom and searches for the bride. When the bride is found the brother-in-law of the bridegroom takes her up, and bride and bridegroom are then seated under a sheet. The rings worn on the little finger of the right hand are exchanged under the sheet and the clothes of the couple are knotted together. Then follow thesapta padior seven steps round the post, and the ceremony concludes with a dance, a feast and an orgy of drunkenness. A priest takes no part in a Korku marriage ceremony, which is a purely social affair. If a man has only one daughter, or if he requires an assistant for his cultivation, he often makes his prospective son-in-law serve for his wife for a period varying from five to twelve years, the marriage beingthen celebrated at the father-in-law’s expense. If the boy runs away with the girl before the end of his service, his parents have to pay to the girl’s father five rupees for each year of the unexpired term. Marriage is usually adult, girls being wedded between the ages of ten and sixteen and boys at about twenty. Polygamy is freely practised by those who are well enough off to afford it, and instances are known of a man having as many as twelve wives living. A man must not marry his wife’s younger sister if she is the widow of a member of his own sept nor his elder brother’s widow if she is his wife’s elder sister. Widow-marriage is allowed, and divorce may be effected by a simple proclamation of the fact to thepanchāyatin a caste assembly.

The marriage ceremony resembles that of the Hindus but has one or two special features. After the customary cleaning of the house which should be performed on a Tuesday, the bridegroom is carried to the heap of stones which represents Mutua Deo, and there the Bhumka or priest invokes the various sylvan deities, offering to them the blood of chickens. Again when he is dressed for the wedding the boy is given a knife or dagger carrying a pierced lemon on the blade, and he and his parents and relatives proceed to aber11or wild plum tree. The boy and his parents sit at the foot of the tree and are tied to it with a thread, while the Bhumka again spills the blood of a fowl on the roots of the tree and invokes the sun and moon, whom the Korkus consider to be their ultimate ancestors. Theberfruit may perhaps be selected as symbolising the red orb of the settingsun. The party then dance round the tree. When the wedding procession is formed the following ceremony takes place: A blanket is spread in the yard of the house and the bridegroom and his elder brother’s wife are made to stand on it and embrace each other seven times. This may probably be a survival of the modified system of polyandry still practised by the Khonds, under which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder brother’s wife until their own marriage. The ceremony would then typify the cessation of this intercourse at the wedding of the boy. The procession must reach the bride’s village on a Monday, a Wednesday or a Friday, a breach of this rule entailing a fine of Rs. 8 on the boy’s father. On arrival at the bride’s village its progress is barred by a rope stretched across the road by the bride’s relatives, who must be given two pice each before it is removed. The bridegroom touches the marriage-shed with a bamboo fan. Next day the couple are seated in the shed and covered with a blanket on to which water is poured to symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. The groom ties a necklace of beads to the girl’s neck, and the couple are then lifted up by the relatives and carried three times round the yard of the house, while they throw yellow-coloured rice at each other. Their clothes are tied together and they proceed to make an offering to Mutua Deo. In Hoshangābād, Mr. Crosthwaite states, the marriage ceremony is presided over by the bridegroom’s aunt or other collateral female relative. The bride is hidden in her father’s house. The aunt then enters carrying the bridegroom and searches for the bride. When the bride is found the brother-in-law of the bridegroom takes her up, and bride and bridegroom are then seated under a sheet. The rings worn on the little finger of the right hand are exchanged under the sheet and the clothes of the couple are knotted together. Then follow thesapta padior seven steps round the post, and the ceremony concludes with a dance, a feast and an orgy of drunkenness. A priest takes no part in a Korku marriage ceremony, which is a purely social affair. If a man has only one daughter, or if he requires an assistant for his cultivation, he often makes his prospective son-in-law serve for his wife for a period varying from five to twelve years, the marriage beingthen celebrated at the father-in-law’s expense. If the boy runs away with the girl before the end of his service, his parents have to pay to the girl’s father five rupees for each year of the unexpired term. Marriage is usually adult, girls being wedded between the ages of ten and sixteen and boys at about twenty. Polygamy is freely practised by those who are well enough off to afford it, and instances are known of a man having as many as twelve wives living. A man must not marry his wife’s younger sister if she is the widow of a member of his own sept nor his elder brother’s widow if she is his wife’s elder sister. Widow-marriage is allowed, and divorce may be effected by a simple proclamation of the fact to thepanchāyatin a caste assembly.

6. Religion.The Korkus consider themselves as Hindus, and are held to have a better claim to a place in the social structure of Hinduism than most of the other forest tribes, as they worship the sun and moon which are Hindu deities and also Mahādeo. In truth, however, their religion, like that of many low Hindu castes, is almost purely animistic. The sun and moon are their principal deities, the name for these luminaries in their language being Gomaj, which is also the term for god or a god. The head of each family offers a white she-goat and a white fowl to the sun every third year, and the Korkus stand with the face to the sun when beginning to sow, and perform other ceremonies with the face turned to the east. The moon has no special observances, but as she is a female deity she is probably considered to participate in those paid to the sun. These gods are, however, scarcely expected to interest themselves in the happenings of a Korku’s daily life, and the local godlings who are believed to regulate these are therefore propitiated with greater fervour. The three most important village deities are Dongar Deo, the god of the hills, who resides on the nearest hill outside the village and is worshipped at Dasahra with offerings of cocoanuts, limes, dates, vermilion and a goat; Mutua Deo, who is represented by a heap of stones within the village and receives a pig for a sacrifice, besides special oblations when disease and sickness are prevalent; and Māta, the goddess of smallpox, to whom cocoanuts and sweetmeats, but no animal sacrifices, are offered.

6. Religion.

The Korkus consider themselves as Hindus, and are held to have a better claim to a place in the social structure of Hinduism than most of the other forest tribes, as they worship the sun and moon which are Hindu deities and also Mahādeo. In truth, however, their religion, like that of many low Hindu castes, is almost purely animistic. The sun and moon are their principal deities, the name for these luminaries in their language being Gomaj, which is also the term for god or a god. The head of each family offers a white she-goat and a white fowl to the sun every third year, and the Korkus stand with the face to the sun when beginning to sow, and perform other ceremonies with the face turned to the east. The moon has no special observances, but as she is a female deity she is probably considered to participate in those paid to the sun. These gods are, however, scarcely expected to interest themselves in the happenings of a Korku’s daily life, and the local godlings who are believed to regulate these are therefore propitiated with greater fervour. The three most important village deities are Dongar Deo, the god of the hills, who resides on the nearest hill outside the village and is worshipped at Dasahra with offerings of cocoanuts, limes, dates, vermilion and a goat; Mutua Deo, who is represented by a heap of stones within the village and receives a pig for a sacrifice, besides special oblations when disease and sickness are prevalent; and Māta, the goddess of smallpox, to whom cocoanuts and sweetmeats, but no animal sacrifices, are offered.

The Korkus consider themselves as Hindus, and are held to have a better claim to a place in the social structure of Hinduism than most of the other forest tribes, as they worship the sun and moon which are Hindu deities and also Mahādeo. In truth, however, their religion, like that of many low Hindu castes, is almost purely animistic. The sun and moon are their principal deities, the name for these luminaries in their language being Gomaj, which is also the term for god or a god. The head of each family offers a white she-goat and a white fowl to the sun every third year, and the Korkus stand with the face to the sun when beginning to sow, and perform other ceremonies with the face turned to the east. The moon has no special observances, but as she is a female deity she is probably considered to participate in those paid to the sun. These gods are, however, scarcely expected to interest themselves in the happenings of a Korku’s daily life, and the local godlings who are believed to regulate these are therefore propitiated with greater fervour. The three most important village deities are Dongar Deo, the god of the hills, who resides on the nearest hill outside the village and is worshipped at Dasahra with offerings of cocoanuts, limes, dates, vermilion and a goat; Mutua Deo, who is represented by a heap of stones within the village and receives a pig for a sacrifice, besides special oblations when disease and sickness are prevalent; and Māta, the goddess of smallpox, to whom cocoanuts and sweetmeats, but no animal sacrifices, are offered.

7. The Bhumka.The priests of the Korkus are of two kinds—Parihārs and Bhumkas. The Parihār may be any man who is visited with the divine afflatus or selected as a mouthpiece by the deity; that is to say, a man of hysterical disposition or one subject to epileptic fits. He is more a prophet than a priest, and is consulted only on special occasions. Parihārs are also rare, but every village has its Bhumka, who performs the regular sacrifices to the village gods and the special ones entailed by disease or other calamities. On him devolves the dangerous duty of keeping tigers out of the boundaries. When a tiger visits the village the Bhumka repairs to Bāgh Deo12and makes an offering to the god, promising to repeat it for so many years on condition that the tiger does not appear for that time. The tiger on his part never fails to fulfil the contract thus silently made, for he is pre-eminently an honourable upright beast, not faithless and treacherous like the leopard whom no contract can bind. Some Bhumkas, however, masters of the most powerful spells, are not obliged to rely on the traditional honour of the tiger, but compel his attendance before Bāgh Deo; and such a Bhumka has been seen as a very Daniel among tigers muttering his incantations over two or three at a time as they crouched before him. Of one Bhumka in Kālibhīt it is related that he had a fine largesājtree, into which, when he uttered his spells, he would drive a nail, and on this the tiger came and ratified the compact with his enormous paw, with which he deeply scored the bark. In this way some have lost their lives, victims of misplaced confidence in their own powers.13If a man is sick and it is desired to ascertain what god or spirit of an ancestor has sent the malady, a handful of grain is waved over the sick man and then carried to the Bhumka. He makes a heap of it on the floor, and, sitting over it, swings a lighted lamp suspended by four strings from his fingers. He then repeats slowly the name of the village deities and the sick man’s ancestors, pausing between each, and the name at which the lamp stops swinging is that of the offended one. He then inquires in a similarmanner whether the propitiation shall be a pig, a chicken, a goat, a cocoanut and so on. The office of Bhumka is usually, but not necessarily, hereditary, and a new one is frequently chosen by lot, this being also done when a new village is founded. All the villagers then sit in a line before the shrine of Mutua Deo, to whom a black and a white chicken are offered. The Parihār, or, if none be available, the oldest man present, then sets apai14rolling before the line of men, and the person before whom it stops is marked out by this intervention of the deity as the new Bhumka. When a new village is to be founded a pai measure is filled with grain to a level with the brim, but with no head (this being known as amundior baldpai), and is placed before Mutua Deo in the evening and watched all night. In the morning the grain is poured out and again replaced in the measure; if it now fills this and also leaves enough for a head, and still more if it brims and runs over, it is a sign that the village will be very prosperous and that every cultivator’s granaries will run over in the same way. But it is an evil omen if the grain does not fill up to the level of the rim of the measure. The explanation of the difference in bulk may be that the grains increase or decrease slightly in size according as the atmosphere is moist or dry, or perhaps the Bhumka works the oracle. The Bhumka usually receives contributions in grain from all the houses in the village; but occasionally each cultivator gives him a day’s ploughing, a day’s weeding and a day’s wood-cutting free. The Bhumka is also employed in Hindu villages for the service of the village gods. But the belief in the powers of these deities is decaying, and with it the tribute paid to the Bhumka for securing their favour. Whereas formerly he received substantial contributions of grain on the same scale as a village menial, the cultivator will now often put him off with a basketful or even a handful, and say, ‘I cannot spare you any more, Bhumka; you must make all the gods content with that.’ In curing diseases the Parihār resorts to swindling tricks. He will tell the sick man that a sacrifice is necessary, asking for a goat if the patient can afford one. He will say itmust be of a particular colour, as all black, white or red, so that the sick man’s family may have much trouble in finding one, and they naturally think the sacrifice is more efficacious in proportion to the difficulty they experience in arranging for it. If they cannot afford a goat the Parihār tells them to sacrifice a cock, and requires one whose feathers curl backwards, as they occasionally do. If the family is very poor any chicken which has come out of the shell, so long as it has a beak, will do duty for a cock. If a man has a pain in his body the Parihār will suck the place and produce small pieces of bone from his mouth, stained with vermilion to imitate blood, and say that he has extracted them from the patient’s body. Perhaps the idea may be that the bones have been caused to enter his body and make him ill by the practice of magic. Formerly the Parihār had to prove his supernatural powers by whipping himself on the back with a rope into which the ends of nails were twisted, and to continue this ordeal for a period long enough to satisfy the villagers that he could not have borne it without some divine assistance. But this salutary custom has fallen into abeyance.

7. The Bhumka.

The priests of the Korkus are of two kinds—Parihārs and Bhumkas. The Parihār may be any man who is visited with the divine afflatus or selected as a mouthpiece by the deity; that is to say, a man of hysterical disposition or one subject to epileptic fits. He is more a prophet than a priest, and is consulted only on special occasions. Parihārs are also rare, but every village has its Bhumka, who performs the regular sacrifices to the village gods and the special ones entailed by disease or other calamities. On him devolves the dangerous duty of keeping tigers out of the boundaries. When a tiger visits the village the Bhumka repairs to Bāgh Deo12and makes an offering to the god, promising to repeat it for so many years on condition that the tiger does not appear for that time. The tiger on his part never fails to fulfil the contract thus silently made, for he is pre-eminently an honourable upright beast, not faithless and treacherous like the leopard whom no contract can bind. Some Bhumkas, however, masters of the most powerful spells, are not obliged to rely on the traditional honour of the tiger, but compel his attendance before Bāgh Deo; and such a Bhumka has been seen as a very Daniel among tigers muttering his incantations over two or three at a time as they crouched before him. Of one Bhumka in Kālibhīt it is related that he had a fine largesājtree, into which, when he uttered his spells, he would drive a nail, and on this the tiger came and ratified the compact with his enormous paw, with which he deeply scored the bark. In this way some have lost their lives, victims of misplaced confidence in their own powers.13If a man is sick and it is desired to ascertain what god or spirit of an ancestor has sent the malady, a handful of grain is waved over the sick man and then carried to the Bhumka. He makes a heap of it on the floor, and, sitting over it, swings a lighted lamp suspended by four strings from his fingers. He then repeats slowly the name of the village deities and the sick man’s ancestors, pausing between each, and the name at which the lamp stops swinging is that of the offended one. He then inquires in a similarmanner whether the propitiation shall be a pig, a chicken, a goat, a cocoanut and so on. The office of Bhumka is usually, but not necessarily, hereditary, and a new one is frequently chosen by lot, this being also done when a new village is founded. All the villagers then sit in a line before the shrine of Mutua Deo, to whom a black and a white chicken are offered. The Parihār, or, if none be available, the oldest man present, then sets apai14rolling before the line of men, and the person before whom it stops is marked out by this intervention of the deity as the new Bhumka. When a new village is to be founded a pai measure is filled with grain to a level with the brim, but with no head (this being known as amundior baldpai), and is placed before Mutua Deo in the evening and watched all night. In the morning the grain is poured out and again replaced in the measure; if it now fills this and also leaves enough for a head, and still more if it brims and runs over, it is a sign that the village will be very prosperous and that every cultivator’s granaries will run over in the same way. But it is an evil omen if the grain does not fill up to the level of the rim of the measure. The explanation of the difference in bulk may be that the grains increase or decrease slightly in size according as the atmosphere is moist or dry, or perhaps the Bhumka works the oracle. The Bhumka usually receives contributions in grain from all the houses in the village; but occasionally each cultivator gives him a day’s ploughing, a day’s weeding and a day’s wood-cutting free. The Bhumka is also employed in Hindu villages for the service of the village gods. But the belief in the powers of these deities is decaying, and with it the tribute paid to the Bhumka for securing their favour. Whereas formerly he received substantial contributions of grain on the same scale as a village menial, the cultivator will now often put him off with a basketful or even a handful, and say, ‘I cannot spare you any more, Bhumka; you must make all the gods content with that.’ In curing diseases the Parihār resorts to swindling tricks. He will tell the sick man that a sacrifice is necessary, asking for a goat if the patient can afford one. He will say itmust be of a particular colour, as all black, white or red, so that the sick man’s family may have much trouble in finding one, and they naturally think the sacrifice is more efficacious in proportion to the difficulty they experience in arranging for it. If they cannot afford a goat the Parihār tells them to sacrifice a cock, and requires one whose feathers curl backwards, as they occasionally do. If the family is very poor any chicken which has come out of the shell, so long as it has a beak, will do duty for a cock. If a man has a pain in his body the Parihār will suck the place and produce small pieces of bone from his mouth, stained with vermilion to imitate blood, and say that he has extracted them from the patient’s body. Perhaps the idea may be that the bones have been caused to enter his body and make him ill by the practice of magic. Formerly the Parihār had to prove his supernatural powers by whipping himself on the back with a rope into which the ends of nails were twisted, and to continue this ordeal for a period long enough to satisfy the villagers that he could not have borne it without some divine assistance. But this salutary custom has fallen into abeyance.

The priests of the Korkus are of two kinds—Parihārs and Bhumkas. The Parihār may be any man who is visited with the divine afflatus or selected as a mouthpiece by the deity; that is to say, a man of hysterical disposition or one subject to epileptic fits. He is more a prophet than a priest, and is consulted only on special occasions. Parihārs are also rare, but every village has its Bhumka, who performs the regular sacrifices to the village gods and the special ones entailed by disease or other calamities. On him devolves the dangerous duty of keeping tigers out of the boundaries. When a tiger visits the village the Bhumka repairs to Bāgh Deo12and makes an offering to the god, promising to repeat it for so many years on condition that the tiger does not appear for that time. The tiger on his part never fails to fulfil the contract thus silently made, for he is pre-eminently an honourable upright beast, not faithless and treacherous like the leopard whom no contract can bind. Some Bhumkas, however, masters of the most powerful spells, are not obliged to rely on the traditional honour of the tiger, but compel his attendance before Bāgh Deo; and such a Bhumka has been seen as a very Daniel among tigers muttering his incantations over two or three at a time as they crouched before him. Of one Bhumka in Kālibhīt it is related that he had a fine largesājtree, into which, when he uttered his spells, he would drive a nail, and on this the tiger came and ratified the compact with his enormous paw, with which he deeply scored the bark. In this way some have lost their lives, victims of misplaced confidence in their own powers.13If a man is sick and it is desired to ascertain what god or spirit of an ancestor has sent the malady, a handful of grain is waved over the sick man and then carried to the Bhumka. He makes a heap of it on the floor, and, sitting over it, swings a lighted lamp suspended by four strings from his fingers. He then repeats slowly the name of the village deities and the sick man’s ancestors, pausing between each, and the name at which the lamp stops swinging is that of the offended one. He then inquires in a similarmanner whether the propitiation shall be a pig, a chicken, a goat, a cocoanut and so on. The office of Bhumka is usually, but not necessarily, hereditary, and a new one is frequently chosen by lot, this being also done when a new village is founded. All the villagers then sit in a line before the shrine of Mutua Deo, to whom a black and a white chicken are offered. The Parihār, or, if none be available, the oldest man present, then sets apai14rolling before the line of men, and the person before whom it stops is marked out by this intervention of the deity as the new Bhumka. When a new village is to be founded a pai measure is filled with grain to a level with the brim, but with no head (this being known as amundior baldpai), and is placed before Mutua Deo in the evening and watched all night. In the morning the grain is poured out and again replaced in the measure; if it now fills this and also leaves enough for a head, and still more if it brims and runs over, it is a sign that the village will be very prosperous and that every cultivator’s granaries will run over in the same way. But it is an evil omen if the grain does not fill up to the level of the rim of the measure. The explanation of the difference in bulk may be that the grains increase or decrease slightly in size according as the atmosphere is moist or dry, or perhaps the Bhumka works the oracle. The Bhumka usually receives contributions in grain from all the houses in the village; but occasionally each cultivator gives him a day’s ploughing, a day’s weeding and a day’s wood-cutting free. The Bhumka is also employed in Hindu villages for the service of the village gods. But the belief in the powers of these deities is decaying, and with it the tribute paid to the Bhumka for securing their favour. Whereas formerly he received substantial contributions of grain on the same scale as a village menial, the cultivator will now often put him off with a basketful or even a handful, and say, ‘I cannot spare you any more, Bhumka; you must make all the gods content with that.’ In curing diseases the Parihār resorts to swindling tricks. He will tell the sick man that a sacrifice is necessary, asking for a goat if the patient can afford one. He will say itmust be of a particular colour, as all black, white or red, so that the sick man’s family may have much trouble in finding one, and they naturally think the sacrifice is more efficacious in proportion to the difficulty they experience in arranging for it. If they cannot afford a goat the Parihār tells them to sacrifice a cock, and requires one whose feathers curl backwards, as they occasionally do. If the family is very poor any chicken which has come out of the shell, so long as it has a beak, will do duty for a cock. If a man has a pain in his body the Parihār will suck the place and produce small pieces of bone from his mouth, stained with vermilion to imitate blood, and say that he has extracted them from the patient’s body. Perhaps the idea may be that the bones have been caused to enter his body and make him ill by the practice of magic. Formerly the Parihār had to prove his supernatural powers by whipping himself on the back with a rope into which the ends of nails were twisted, and to continue this ordeal for a period long enough to satisfy the villagers that he could not have borne it without some divine assistance. But this salutary custom has fallen into abeyance.

8. Magical practices.The Korkus have the same belief in the efficacy of imitative and sympathetic magic as other primitive peoples.15Thus to injure an enemy, a clay image of him is made and pierced with a knife, in the belief that the real person will suffer in the same manner. If the clay can be taken from a place where his foot has made an impression in walking, or the image wrapped round with his hair, the charm is more efficacious. Or an image may be made with charcoal on some stolen portion of his apparel, and similarly wrapped in his hair; it is then burnt in the belief that the real person will be attacked by fever. Sometimes the image is buried in a place where it is likely that the victim will walk over it, when the same result is hoped for. In order to produce rain, a frog, as the animal delighting in the element of water, is caught and slung on a stick; the boys and girls then carry it from house to house and the householders pour water over it. If it is desired to stop rain a frog is caught and buried alive, this being done by a naked boy. Anotherdevice for producing rain is to yoke two naked women to a plough, who are then driven across a field like bullocks and goaded by a third naked woman. This device may possibly be intended to cause the gods to send rain, by showing how the natural order of the world is upset and reversed by the continued drought. In order to stop rain an unmarried youth collects water in a new earthen pot from the eaves and buries it below the hearth so that the water may disappear by evaporation and the rain may cease in the same manner. Another method is to send a man belonging to the Kāsada sept—Kāsadameaning slime—to bring a plough from the field and place it in his house. He also stops bathing or washing for the period for which a break in the rains is required, and the idea is perhaps that as the man whose name and nature are mud or slime is dry so the mud on the earth will dry up; and as the plough is dry, the ploughed fields which have been in contact with it will also become dry. In order to produce a quarrel the quills of a porcupine are smoked with the burnt parings of an enemy’s nails and deposited in the eaves of his house. And as the fretful porcupine raises his quills when angry with an enemy, these will have the effect of causing strife among the members of the household. If a person wishes to transfer his sickness to another, he obtains the latter’s cloth and draws on it with lamp-black two effigies, one upright and the other upside down. As soon as the owner puts on the cloth, he will fall a victim to the ailment of the person who drew the effigies. In order to obtain children the hair of a woman who has borne several is secured by a barren woman and buried below her bathing-stone, when the quality of fertility will be transferred to her from the owner of the hair. In order to facilitate child-birth a twisted thread is untwined before the eyes of the pregnant woman with the idea that the delivery will thus be made direct and easy; or she is given water to drink in which her husband’s left leg, a gun-barrel, a pestle, or a thunder-bolt has been washed; it being supposed that as each of these articles has the quality of direct and powerful propulsion, this quality will be conveyed to the woman and enable her to propel the child from her womb. The Korkus also trust largely to omens. It isinauspicious when starting out on some business to see a black-faced monkey or a hare passing either on the left or right, or a snake crossing in front. A person seeing any of these will usually return and postpone his business to a more favourable occasion. It is a bad omen for a hen to cackle or lay eggs at night. One sneeze is a bad omen, but two neutralise the effect and are favourable. An empty pot is a bad omen and a full one good. To break a pot when commencing any business is fatal, and shows that the work will come to naught. Thursdays and Fridays are favourable days for working, and Mondays and Tuesdays for propitiating one’s ancestors. Odd numbers are lucky. In order to lay to rest the spirit of a dead person, who it is feared may trouble the living, five pieces of bamboo are taken as representing the bones of the dead man, and these with five crab’s legs, five grains of rice and other articles are put into a basket and thrust into a crab’s hole under water. The occasion is made an excuse for much feasting and drinking, and the son or other representative who lays the spirit works himself up into a state of drunken excitement before he enters the water to search for a suitable hole. The fat of a tiger is considered to be an excellent medicine for rheumatism and sprains, and much store is set by it. The tiger’s tongue is also supposed to be a very powerful tonic or strengthening medicine for weakly children. It is cooked, pounded up, and a small quantity administered in milk or water. When a tiger has been killed the Gonds and Korkus will singe off his whiskers, as they think this will prevent the tiger’s spirit from haunting them. Another idea is that the whiskers if chopped up and mixed in the food of an enemy will poison him. They frequently object to touch a man who has been injured or mauled by a tiger, as they think that to do so would bring down the tiger’s vengeance on them. And in some places any Gond or Korku who touches a man mauled by a tiger is put temporarily out of caste and has to be purified and give a feast on readmission.

8. Magical practices.

The Korkus have the same belief in the efficacy of imitative and sympathetic magic as other primitive peoples.15Thus to injure an enemy, a clay image of him is made and pierced with a knife, in the belief that the real person will suffer in the same manner. If the clay can be taken from a place where his foot has made an impression in walking, or the image wrapped round with his hair, the charm is more efficacious. Or an image may be made with charcoal on some stolen portion of his apparel, and similarly wrapped in his hair; it is then burnt in the belief that the real person will be attacked by fever. Sometimes the image is buried in a place where it is likely that the victim will walk over it, when the same result is hoped for. In order to produce rain, a frog, as the animal delighting in the element of water, is caught and slung on a stick; the boys and girls then carry it from house to house and the householders pour water over it. If it is desired to stop rain a frog is caught and buried alive, this being done by a naked boy. Anotherdevice for producing rain is to yoke two naked women to a plough, who are then driven across a field like bullocks and goaded by a third naked woman. This device may possibly be intended to cause the gods to send rain, by showing how the natural order of the world is upset and reversed by the continued drought. In order to stop rain an unmarried youth collects water in a new earthen pot from the eaves and buries it below the hearth so that the water may disappear by evaporation and the rain may cease in the same manner. Another method is to send a man belonging to the Kāsada sept—Kāsadameaning slime—to bring a plough from the field and place it in his house. He also stops bathing or washing for the period for which a break in the rains is required, and the idea is perhaps that as the man whose name and nature are mud or slime is dry so the mud on the earth will dry up; and as the plough is dry, the ploughed fields which have been in contact with it will also become dry. In order to produce a quarrel the quills of a porcupine are smoked with the burnt parings of an enemy’s nails and deposited in the eaves of his house. And as the fretful porcupine raises his quills when angry with an enemy, these will have the effect of causing strife among the members of the household. If a person wishes to transfer his sickness to another, he obtains the latter’s cloth and draws on it with lamp-black two effigies, one upright and the other upside down. As soon as the owner puts on the cloth, he will fall a victim to the ailment of the person who drew the effigies. In order to obtain children the hair of a woman who has borne several is secured by a barren woman and buried below her bathing-stone, when the quality of fertility will be transferred to her from the owner of the hair. In order to facilitate child-birth a twisted thread is untwined before the eyes of the pregnant woman with the idea that the delivery will thus be made direct and easy; or she is given water to drink in which her husband’s left leg, a gun-barrel, a pestle, or a thunder-bolt has been washed; it being supposed that as each of these articles has the quality of direct and powerful propulsion, this quality will be conveyed to the woman and enable her to propel the child from her womb. The Korkus also trust largely to omens. It isinauspicious when starting out on some business to see a black-faced monkey or a hare passing either on the left or right, or a snake crossing in front. A person seeing any of these will usually return and postpone his business to a more favourable occasion. It is a bad omen for a hen to cackle or lay eggs at night. One sneeze is a bad omen, but two neutralise the effect and are favourable. An empty pot is a bad omen and a full one good. To break a pot when commencing any business is fatal, and shows that the work will come to naught. Thursdays and Fridays are favourable days for working, and Mondays and Tuesdays for propitiating one’s ancestors. Odd numbers are lucky. In order to lay to rest the spirit of a dead person, who it is feared may trouble the living, five pieces of bamboo are taken as representing the bones of the dead man, and these with five crab’s legs, five grains of rice and other articles are put into a basket and thrust into a crab’s hole under water. The occasion is made an excuse for much feasting and drinking, and the son or other representative who lays the spirit works himself up into a state of drunken excitement before he enters the water to search for a suitable hole. The fat of a tiger is considered to be an excellent medicine for rheumatism and sprains, and much store is set by it. The tiger’s tongue is also supposed to be a very powerful tonic or strengthening medicine for weakly children. It is cooked, pounded up, and a small quantity administered in milk or water. When a tiger has been killed the Gonds and Korkus will singe off his whiskers, as they think this will prevent the tiger’s spirit from haunting them. Another idea is that the whiskers if chopped up and mixed in the food of an enemy will poison him. They frequently object to touch a man who has been injured or mauled by a tiger, as they think that to do so would bring down the tiger’s vengeance on them. And in some places any Gond or Korku who touches a man mauled by a tiger is put temporarily out of caste and has to be purified and give a feast on readmission.

The Korkus have the same belief in the efficacy of imitative and sympathetic magic as other primitive peoples.15Thus to injure an enemy, a clay image of him is made and pierced with a knife, in the belief that the real person will suffer in the same manner. If the clay can be taken from a place where his foot has made an impression in walking, or the image wrapped round with his hair, the charm is more efficacious. Or an image may be made with charcoal on some stolen portion of his apparel, and similarly wrapped in his hair; it is then burnt in the belief that the real person will be attacked by fever. Sometimes the image is buried in a place where it is likely that the victim will walk over it, when the same result is hoped for. In order to produce rain, a frog, as the animal delighting in the element of water, is caught and slung on a stick; the boys and girls then carry it from house to house and the householders pour water over it. If it is desired to stop rain a frog is caught and buried alive, this being done by a naked boy. Anotherdevice for producing rain is to yoke two naked women to a plough, who are then driven across a field like bullocks and goaded by a third naked woman. This device may possibly be intended to cause the gods to send rain, by showing how the natural order of the world is upset and reversed by the continued drought. In order to stop rain an unmarried youth collects water in a new earthen pot from the eaves and buries it below the hearth so that the water may disappear by evaporation and the rain may cease in the same manner. Another method is to send a man belonging to the Kāsada sept—Kāsadameaning slime—to bring a plough from the field and place it in his house. He also stops bathing or washing for the period for which a break in the rains is required, and the idea is perhaps that as the man whose name and nature are mud or slime is dry so the mud on the earth will dry up; and as the plough is dry, the ploughed fields which have been in contact with it will also become dry. In order to produce a quarrel the quills of a porcupine are smoked with the burnt parings of an enemy’s nails and deposited in the eaves of his house. And as the fretful porcupine raises his quills when angry with an enemy, these will have the effect of causing strife among the members of the household. If a person wishes to transfer his sickness to another, he obtains the latter’s cloth and draws on it with lamp-black two effigies, one upright and the other upside down. As soon as the owner puts on the cloth, he will fall a victim to the ailment of the person who drew the effigies. In order to obtain children the hair of a woman who has borne several is secured by a barren woman and buried below her bathing-stone, when the quality of fertility will be transferred to her from the owner of the hair. In order to facilitate child-birth a twisted thread is untwined before the eyes of the pregnant woman with the idea that the delivery will thus be made direct and easy; or she is given water to drink in which her husband’s left leg, a gun-barrel, a pestle, or a thunder-bolt has been washed; it being supposed that as each of these articles has the quality of direct and powerful propulsion, this quality will be conveyed to the woman and enable her to propel the child from her womb. The Korkus also trust largely to omens. It isinauspicious when starting out on some business to see a black-faced monkey or a hare passing either on the left or right, or a snake crossing in front. A person seeing any of these will usually return and postpone his business to a more favourable occasion. It is a bad omen for a hen to cackle or lay eggs at night. One sneeze is a bad omen, but two neutralise the effect and are favourable. An empty pot is a bad omen and a full one good. To break a pot when commencing any business is fatal, and shows that the work will come to naught. Thursdays and Fridays are favourable days for working, and Mondays and Tuesdays for propitiating one’s ancestors. Odd numbers are lucky. In order to lay to rest the spirit of a dead person, who it is feared may trouble the living, five pieces of bamboo are taken as representing the bones of the dead man, and these with five crab’s legs, five grains of rice and other articles are put into a basket and thrust into a crab’s hole under water. The occasion is made an excuse for much feasting and drinking, and the son or other representative who lays the spirit works himself up into a state of drunken excitement before he enters the water to search for a suitable hole. The fat of a tiger is considered to be an excellent medicine for rheumatism and sprains, and much store is set by it. The tiger’s tongue is also supposed to be a very powerful tonic or strengthening medicine for weakly children. It is cooked, pounded up, and a small quantity administered in milk or water. When a tiger has been killed the Gonds and Korkus will singe off his whiskers, as they think this will prevent the tiger’s spirit from haunting them. Another idea is that the whiskers if chopped up and mixed in the food of an enemy will poison him. They frequently object to touch a man who has been injured or mauled by a tiger, as they think that to do so would bring down the tiger’s vengeance on them. And in some places any Gond or Korku who touches a man mauled by a tiger is put temporarily out of caste and has to be purified and give a feast on readmission.

9. Funeral rites.The dead are usually buried, two pice being first thrown into the grave to buy the site. The body is laid on its back, naked and with the head pointing to the south.The earth is mixed with briars and thorns while being filled in so as to keep off hyenas, and stones are placed over the grave. No fixed period of mourning is observed, but after the lapse of some days, the deceased’s family or relatives go to the burial-place, taking with them a piece of turmeric. This they cut into strips, and, placing them in a leaf-cup, pour water over them. As the water falls on the tomb, a god is called to witness that this day the dead man’s spirit has been sent to live with the ancestors. The pieces of turmeric are then tied in a cloth which, after receiving an oblation of fowl’s blood, is suspended from the main beam of the house, this being considered the dwelling-place of the departed. This ceremony, called Pitar Miloni, is the first rite for the admission of the deceased with the spirits of his ancestors, and is preliminary to the final ceremony of Sedoli which may be performed at any time between four months and fifteen years after the death. But until it is complete the spirit of the deceased has not been laid finally to rest and has the power of sending aches and pains to molest the bodies of its living relatives. Each sept has a place in which the Sedoli rites must be performed, and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he must return there to set his father’s spirit at rest and enable it to join the ancestral ghosts. When the Sedoli is to be performed an unblemished teak orsalai16tree is selected and wrapped round with a thread, while seven circuits of it are made and a bottle of liquor and two pice are offered as purchase money. It is then cut down and brought home, and from it a smooth stake calledmūndais fashioned, 24 to 30 inches high, and squared or pointed at the top, often being arrow-headed. On it are carved representations of the sun and moon, a spider and a human ear, and below these a figure representing the principal person in whose honour the stake is erected, on horseback with weapons in his hand. The proper method is to have onemūndafor each ancestor, but poor persons make one do for several and their figures are then carved below. But care must be taken that the total number of figures representing the dead does not exceed that of themembers of the family who have died during the period for which the Sedoli is performed. For in that case another person is likely to die for each extra figure. The little bags of turmeric representing the ancestors are then taken from the main beam of the house and carried with themūndato the burial-place. There a goat is sacrificed and these articles are besmeared with its blood, after which a feast is held accompanied by singing and dancing. Next day the party again go to the burial-place and plant themūndain it, placing two pice in the hole beneath it. They then proceed to the riverside, and, making a little ball from the flesh of the sacrificed animal, place it together with the bags of turmeric on a leaf platter, and throw the whole into the river saying, ‘Ancestors, find your home.’ If the ball sinks at once they consider that the ancestors have been successful, but if any delay takes place, they attribute it to the difficulty experienced by the ancestors in the selection of a home and throw in two pice to assist them. The pith of a bamboo may be substituted for turmeric to represent the bones. The dead are supposed to inhabit a village of their own similar to that in which they dwelt on earth and to lead there a colourless existence devoid alike of pleasure and of pain.

9. Funeral rites.

The dead are usually buried, two pice being first thrown into the grave to buy the site. The body is laid on its back, naked and with the head pointing to the south.The earth is mixed with briars and thorns while being filled in so as to keep off hyenas, and stones are placed over the grave. No fixed period of mourning is observed, but after the lapse of some days, the deceased’s family or relatives go to the burial-place, taking with them a piece of turmeric. This they cut into strips, and, placing them in a leaf-cup, pour water over them. As the water falls on the tomb, a god is called to witness that this day the dead man’s spirit has been sent to live with the ancestors. The pieces of turmeric are then tied in a cloth which, after receiving an oblation of fowl’s blood, is suspended from the main beam of the house, this being considered the dwelling-place of the departed. This ceremony, called Pitar Miloni, is the first rite for the admission of the deceased with the spirits of his ancestors, and is preliminary to the final ceremony of Sedoli which may be performed at any time between four months and fifteen years after the death. But until it is complete the spirit of the deceased has not been laid finally to rest and has the power of sending aches and pains to molest the bodies of its living relatives. Each sept has a place in which the Sedoli rites must be performed, and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he must return there to set his father’s spirit at rest and enable it to join the ancestral ghosts. When the Sedoli is to be performed an unblemished teak orsalai16tree is selected and wrapped round with a thread, while seven circuits of it are made and a bottle of liquor and two pice are offered as purchase money. It is then cut down and brought home, and from it a smooth stake calledmūndais fashioned, 24 to 30 inches high, and squared or pointed at the top, often being arrow-headed. On it are carved representations of the sun and moon, a spider and a human ear, and below these a figure representing the principal person in whose honour the stake is erected, on horseback with weapons in his hand. The proper method is to have onemūndafor each ancestor, but poor persons make one do for several and their figures are then carved below. But care must be taken that the total number of figures representing the dead does not exceed that of themembers of the family who have died during the period for which the Sedoli is performed. For in that case another person is likely to die for each extra figure. The little bags of turmeric representing the ancestors are then taken from the main beam of the house and carried with themūndato the burial-place. There a goat is sacrificed and these articles are besmeared with its blood, after which a feast is held accompanied by singing and dancing. Next day the party again go to the burial-place and plant themūndain it, placing two pice in the hole beneath it. They then proceed to the riverside, and, making a little ball from the flesh of the sacrificed animal, place it together with the bags of turmeric on a leaf platter, and throw the whole into the river saying, ‘Ancestors, find your home.’ If the ball sinks at once they consider that the ancestors have been successful, but if any delay takes place, they attribute it to the difficulty experienced by the ancestors in the selection of a home and throw in two pice to assist them. The pith of a bamboo may be substituted for turmeric to represent the bones. The dead are supposed to inhabit a village of their own similar to that in which they dwelt on earth and to lead there a colourless existence devoid alike of pleasure and of pain.

The dead are usually buried, two pice being first thrown into the grave to buy the site. The body is laid on its back, naked and with the head pointing to the south.The earth is mixed with briars and thorns while being filled in so as to keep off hyenas, and stones are placed over the grave. No fixed period of mourning is observed, but after the lapse of some days, the deceased’s family or relatives go to the burial-place, taking with them a piece of turmeric. This they cut into strips, and, placing them in a leaf-cup, pour water over them. As the water falls on the tomb, a god is called to witness that this day the dead man’s spirit has been sent to live with the ancestors. The pieces of turmeric are then tied in a cloth which, after receiving an oblation of fowl’s blood, is suspended from the main beam of the house, this being considered the dwelling-place of the departed. This ceremony, called Pitar Miloni, is the first rite for the admission of the deceased with the spirits of his ancestors, and is preliminary to the final ceremony of Sedoli which may be performed at any time between four months and fifteen years after the death. But until it is complete the spirit of the deceased has not been laid finally to rest and has the power of sending aches and pains to molest the bodies of its living relatives. Each sept has a place in which the Sedoli rites must be performed, and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he must return there to set his father’s spirit at rest and enable it to join the ancestral ghosts. When the Sedoli is to be performed an unblemished teak orsalai16tree is selected and wrapped round with a thread, while seven circuits of it are made and a bottle of liquor and two pice are offered as purchase money. It is then cut down and brought home, and from it a smooth stake calledmūndais fashioned, 24 to 30 inches high, and squared or pointed at the top, often being arrow-headed. On it are carved representations of the sun and moon, a spider and a human ear, and below these a figure representing the principal person in whose honour the stake is erected, on horseback with weapons in his hand. The proper method is to have onemūndafor each ancestor, but poor persons make one do for several and their figures are then carved below. But care must be taken that the total number of figures representing the dead does not exceed that of themembers of the family who have died during the period for which the Sedoli is performed. For in that case another person is likely to die for each extra figure. The little bags of turmeric representing the ancestors are then taken from the main beam of the house and carried with themūndato the burial-place. There a goat is sacrificed and these articles are besmeared with its blood, after which a feast is held accompanied by singing and dancing. Next day the party again go to the burial-place and plant themūndain it, placing two pice in the hole beneath it. They then proceed to the riverside, and, making a little ball from the flesh of the sacrificed animal, place it together with the bags of turmeric on a leaf platter, and throw the whole into the river saying, ‘Ancestors, find your home.’ If the ball sinks at once they consider that the ancestors have been successful, but if any delay takes place, they attribute it to the difficulty experienced by the ancestors in the selection of a home and throw in two pice to assist them. The pith of a bamboo may be substituted for turmeric to represent the bones. The dead are supposed to inhabit a village of their own similar to that in which they dwelt on earth and to lead there a colourless existence devoid alike of pleasure and of pain.

10. Appearance and social customs.The following description of the Korkus is given by Major Forsyth in the Nimār Settlement Report of 1868–69, with the addition of some remarks made by other observers. The Korkus are well built and muscular. The average Korku has a round face, a nose rather wide but not flat like a negro’s, prominent cheek-bones, a scanty moustache and his head shaved after the Hindu fashion. They are slightly taller than the Gond, a shade darker and a good many shades dirtier. In the wilder parts one may come across some quite too awful Korkus, from whom an intervening space of fifty yards is an insufficient protection, though strange to say there are no less than six words in their language which mean ‘to wash’; one to wash the whole body, one the limbs, one for the face, one for the mouth, one for the hair and one for the clothes, besides a word for scouring the body with a stone and another word for bathing in a stream. Their habitations on the otherhand present quite a contrast to their individual want of cleanliness. They build their villages of a close bamboo wattle-work and with almost Swisslike neatness, a picturesque site being usually chosen, and the plan being one long street with a wide open roadway, or several such parallel with each other. The villages are kept remarkably clean, in striking contrast to the habitations of other aboriginal tribes. The average village contains about twenty huts, and it is the custom to bind these so closely together that forest fires often sweep through a whole village before a hut can be removed to check their course. The average hut is about fifteen feet square with a rather flat roof covered with loose grass over a layer of leaves and pressed down by outside poles. No nails are required as the posts are bound firmly together with bamboo or creeper fibre. The inmates generally sleep on the ground, and a few low stools carved from teak wood serve them for pillows. Every village has a few pigs and fowls running about, both of which are eaten after being sacrificed. The Korku is an adept in the crude process of distillation in which the only apparatus required consists of twogharasor earthen pots, a hollow bamboo, some mahua flowers, water and a fire. By this means the Korku manages to produce liquor upon which he can effectually get drunk. They are by no means particular about what they eat. Fowls, pork, fish, crabs and tortoise are all consumed, and beef and rats are eaten in some localities but not in others. The Rūma and Bondoya Korkus eat buffaloes, and the latter add monkeys to an already comprehensive dietary. The lowest caste with whom they are said to eat are Kolis. They do not eat with Gonds. Gonds, Māngs, Basors and a few other low castes take food from them and also, it is said, Bhīls. The Korkus will freely admit members of the higher castes into the community, and a woman incurs no social penalty for aliaisonwith a member of any caste from which a Korku can take food. But if she goes wrong with a low-caste man she is permanently expelled and a fine of Rs. 40 is exacted from the parents before they are readmitted to social intercourse. In the case of adultery with a member of the caste, if the husband does not wish to keep his wife, theoffending parties have a lock of hair cut off and give a dinner, and are then considered to be married. But if the husband does not turn his wife away, he, on his wife’s account, and the seducer must give a joint dinner to the caste. They have a tribal council orpanchāyatwhich inflicts the usual penalties for social offences, while in very serious cases, such as intercourse with a low caste, it causes the offender to be born again. He is placed inside a large earthen pot which is sealed up, and when taken out of this he is said to be born again from his mother’s womb. He is then buried in sand and comes out as a fresh incarnation from the earth, placed in a grass hut which is fired, and from within which he runs out as it is burning, immersed in water, and finally has a tuft cut from his scalp-lock and is fined two and a half rupees. The Korkus as a race are very poor, and a poor Korku manages to exist with even less clothing than a poor Gond. A loincloth of the scantiest and a wisp of turban coiled on the top of the head and leaving the centre of the skull uncovered form his complete costume for dry weather. Sometimes a large brass chain is worn in the turban or attached to the waist, and to it are suspended a flint and steel and a small dry gourd full of cotton—the implements for obtaining fire. It is also common to wear a large brass ring in one ear. A special habit of the Korku in Nimār, Major Forsyth states, is to carry a small bamboo flute behind the ear like a pen, from which he discourses a not unpleasant strain, chiefly when drunk or engaged in propitiating Bāgh Deo, Devi or any other dread power whom he reverences. The women as a rule wear only a dirty whitesāriand are loaded with cheap ornaments. Necklaces of beads are worn on the neck, covering the chest, while the arms and legs are weighed down with brass and iron.

10. Appearance and social customs.

The following description of the Korkus is given by Major Forsyth in the Nimār Settlement Report of 1868–69, with the addition of some remarks made by other observers. The Korkus are well built and muscular. The average Korku has a round face, a nose rather wide but not flat like a negro’s, prominent cheek-bones, a scanty moustache and his head shaved after the Hindu fashion. They are slightly taller than the Gond, a shade darker and a good many shades dirtier. In the wilder parts one may come across some quite too awful Korkus, from whom an intervening space of fifty yards is an insufficient protection, though strange to say there are no less than six words in their language which mean ‘to wash’; one to wash the whole body, one the limbs, one for the face, one for the mouth, one for the hair and one for the clothes, besides a word for scouring the body with a stone and another word for bathing in a stream. Their habitations on the otherhand present quite a contrast to their individual want of cleanliness. They build their villages of a close bamboo wattle-work and with almost Swisslike neatness, a picturesque site being usually chosen, and the plan being one long street with a wide open roadway, or several such parallel with each other. The villages are kept remarkably clean, in striking contrast to the habitations of other aboriginal tribes. The average village contains about twenty huts, and it is the custom to bind these so closely together that forest fires often sweep through a whole village before a hut can be removed to check their course. The average hut is about fifteen feet square with a rather flat roof covered with loose grass over a layer of leaves and pressed down by outside poles. No nails are required as the posts are bound firmly together with bamboo or creeper fibre. The inmates generally sleep on the ground, and a few low stools carved from teak wood serve them for pillows. Every village has a few pigs and fowls running about, both of which are eaten after being sacrificed. The Korku is an adept in the crude process of distillation in which the only apparatus required consists of twogharasor earthen pots, a hollow bamboo, some mahua flowers, water and a fire. By this means the Korku manages to produce liquor upon which he can effectually get drunk. They are by no means particular about what they eat. Fowls, pork, fish, crabs and tortoise are all consumed, and beef and rats are eaten in some localities but not in others. The Rūma and Bondoya Korkus eat buffaloes, and the latter add monkeys to an already comprehensive dietary. The lowest caste with whom they are said to eat are Kolis. They do not eat with Gonds. Gonds, Māngs, Basors and a few other low castes take food from them and also, it is said, Bhīls. The Korkus will freely admit members of the higher castes into the community, and a woman incurs no social penalty for aliaisonwith a member of any caste from which a Korku can take food. But if she goes wrong with a low-caste man she is permanently expelled and a fine of Rs. 40 is exacted from the parents before they are readmitted to social intercourse. In the case of adultery with a member of the caste, if the husband does not wish to keep his wife, theoffending parties have a lock of hair cut off and give a dinner, and are then considered to be married. But if the husband does not turn his wife away, he, on his wife’s account, and the seducer must give a joint dinner to the caste. They have a tribal council orpanchāyatwhich inflicts the usual penalties for social offences, while in very serious cases, such as intercourse with a low caste, it causes the offender to be born again. He is placed inside a large earthen pot which is sealed up, and when taken out of this he is said to be born again from his mother’s womb. He is then buried in sand and comes out as a fresh incarnation from the earth, placed in a grass hut which is fired, and from within which he runs out as it is burning, immersed in water, and finally has a tuft cut from his scalp-lock and is fined two and a half rupees. The Korkus as a race are very poor, and a poor Korku manages to exist with even less clothing than a poor Gond. A loincloth of the scantiest and a wisp of turban coiled on the top of the head and leaving the centre of the skull uncovered form his complete costume for dry weather. Sometimes a large brass chain is worn in the turban or attached to the waist, and to it are suspended a flint and steel and a small dry gourd full of cotton—the implements for obtaining fire. It is also common to wear a large brass ring in one ear. A special habit of the Korku in Nimār, Major Forsyth states, is to carry a small bamboo flute behind the ear like a pen, from which he discourses a not unpleasant strain, chiefly when drunk or engaged in propitiating Bāgh Deo, Devi or any other dread power whom he reverences. The women as a rule wear only a dirty whitesāriand are loaded with cheap ornaments. Necklaces of beads are worn on the neck, covering the chest, while the arms and legs are weighed down with brass and iron.

The following description of the Korkus is given by Major Forsyth in the Nimār Settlement Report of 1868–69, with the addition of some remarks made by other observers. The Korkus are well built and muscular. The average Korku has a round face, a nose rather wide but not flat like a negro’s, prominent cheek-bones, a scanty moustache and his head shaved after the Hindu fashion. They are slightly taller than the Gond, a shade darker and a good many shades dirtier. In the wilder parts one may come across some quite too awful Korkus, from whom an intervening space of fifty yards is an insufficient protection, though strange to say there are no less than six words in their language which mean ‘to wash’; one to wash the whole body, one the limbs, one for the face, one for the mouth, one for the hair and one for the clothes, besides a word for scouring the body with a stone and another word for bathing in a stream. Their habitations on the otherhand present quite a contrast to their individual want of cleanliness. They build their villages of a close bamboo wattle-work and with almost Swisslike neatness, a picturesque site being usually chosen, and the plan being one long street with a wide open roadway, or several such parallel with each other. The villages are kept remarkably clean, in striking contrast to the habitations of other aboriginal tribes. The average village contains about twenty huts, and it is the custom to bind these so closely together that forest fires often sweep through a whole village before a hut can be removed to check their course. The average hut is about fifteen feet square with a rather flat roof covered with loose grass over a layer of leaves and pressed down by outside poles. No nails are required as the posts are bound firmly together with bamboo or creeper fibre. The inmates generally sleep on the ground, and a few low stools carved from teak wood serve them for pillows. Every village has a few pigs and fowls running about, both of which are eaten after being sacrificed. The Korku is an adept in the crude process of distillation in which the only apparatus required consists of twogharasor earthen pots, a hollow bamboo, some mahua flowers, water and a fire. By this means the Korku manages to produce liquor upon which he can effectually get drunk. They are by no means particular about what they eat. Fowls, pork, fish, crabs and tortoise are all consumed, and beef and rats are eaten in some localities but not in others. The Rūma and Bondoya Korkus eat buffaloes, and the latter add monkeys to an already comprehensive dietary. The lowest caste with whom they are said to eat are Kolis. They do not eat with Gonds. Gonds, Māngs, Basors and a few other low castes take food from them and also, it is said, Bhīls. The Korkus will freely admit members of the higher castes into the community, and a woman incurs no social penalty for aliaisonwith a member of any caste from which a Korku can take food. But if she goes wrong with a low-caste man she is permanently expelled and a fine of Rs. 40 is exacted from the parents before they are readmitted to social intercourse. In the case of adultery with a member of the caste, if the husband does not wish to keep his wife, theoffending parties have a lock of hair cut off and give a dinner, and are then considered to be married. But if the husband does not turn his wife away, he, on his wife’s account, and the seducer must give a joint dinner to the caste. They have a tribal council orpanchāyatwhich inflicts the usual penalties for social offences, while in very serious cases, such as intercourse with a low caste, it causes the offender to be born again. He is placed inside a large earthen pot which is sealed up, and when taken out of this he is said to be born again from his mother’s womb. He is then buried in sand and comes out as a fresh incarnation from the earth, placed in a grass hut which is fired, and from within which he runs out as it is burning, immersed in water, and finally has a tuft cut from his scalp-lock and is fined two and a half rupees. The Korkus as a race are very poor, and a poor Korku manages to exist with even less clothing than a poor Gond. A loincloth of the scantiest and a wisp of turban coiled on the top of the head and leaving the centre of the skull uncovered form his complete costume for dry weather. Sometimes a large brass chain is worn in the turban or attached to the waist, and to it are suspended a flint and steel and a small dry gourd full of cotton—the implements for obtaining fire. It is also common to wear a large brass ring in one ear. A special habit of the Korku in Nimār, Major Forsyth states, is to carry a small bamboo flute behind the ear like a pen, from which he discourses a not unpleasant strain, chiefly when drunk or engaged in propitiating Bāgh Deo, Devi or any other dread power whom he reverences. The women as a rule wear only a dirty whitesāriand are loaded with cheap ornaments. Necklaces of beads are worn on the neck, covering the chest, while the arms and legs are weighed down with brass and iron.

11. Character.Like most hill tribes the Korkus are remarkably honest and truthful, slow at calculation and very indignant at being cheated. They are very improvident and great drunkards, and it is the latter habit which has aggravated the obstacles to their improvement.

11. Character.

Like most hill tribes the Korkus are remarkably honest and truthful, slow at calculation and very indignant at being cheated. They are very improvident and great drunkards, and it is the latter habit which has aggravated the obstacles to their improvement.

Like most hill tribes the Korkus are remarkably honest and truthful, slow at calculation and very indignant at being cheated. They are very improvident and great drunkards, and it is the latter habit which has aggravated the obstacles to their improvement.

12. Inheritance.The Korku law of inheritance differs somewhat from that of the Hindus. Among them a grandson does notinherit the property of his grandfather unless it is openly and clearly granted to him during the latter’s lifetime. A married son living separately from his father has no right of succession to the paternal property, but if he is unmarried, he receives half the share of a son who is living with his father. A daughter or a daughter’s son does not inherit the father’s property unless it is granted to either of them by a deed of gift. The sons and mother share equally.

12. Inheritance.

The Korku law of inheritance differs somewhat from that of the Hindus. Among them a grandson does notinherit the property of his grandfather unless it is openly and clearly granted to him during the latter’s lifetime. A married son living separately from his father has no right of succession to the paternal property, but if he is unmarried, he receives half the share of a son who is living with his father. A daughter or a daughter’s son does not inherit the father’s property unless it is granted to either of them by a deed of gift. The sons and mother share equally.

The Korku law of inheritance differs somewhat from that of the Hindus. Among them a grandson does notinherit the property of his grandfather unless it is openly and clearly granted to him during the latter’s lifetime. A married son living separately from his father has no right of succession to the paternal property, but if he is unmarried, he receives half the share of a son who is living with his father. A daughter or a daughter’s son does not inherit the father’s property unless it is granted to either of them by a deed of gift. The sons and mother share equally.

13. Occupation.The Korkus formerly lived principally by hunting, and practised the shifting cultivation in the forests which is now forbidden. Very few of them are landowners, but some large zamīndāri estates in Hoshangābād and Chhindwāra are held by Korku proprietors, who are protected by the prohibition of alienation. Though too improvident and lazy to be good cultivators, they are in great request as farmservants and ploughmen, being too honest to defraud their master of labour or material. A remarkable change has thus taken place from their former character of notorious robbers. They cultivate mainly in the hilly tracts and grow light grains, though some have colonised the waste lands of the upper Tapti valley in Nimār and raise good crops of wheat. They do not as a rule keep cattle other than the few oxen required for cultivating the soil and hauling out timber. Game of all kinds is caught by means of heavy log traps for the larger varieties such as sāmbhar, bear and spotted deer and even leopard; while hares, jungle-fowl and the smaller sort of game are caught under heavy stones held up by nicely adjusted strings. Occasionally, when in search of meat, a whole village will sally out into the forest. Theshikārihas generally a matchlock concealed in some hiding-place in the jungle, and once he is posted the others beat towards him and any animal that turns up is shot at. In the hot weather the water-hole and the bow and arrow play no small part in helping to fill the Korku larder. Another method of catching birds is to spread the pounded fruit of a certain parasitic airplant on a rock. A thick shining gum exudes which so entangles the feet of the smaller birds as to prevent their escape. Fish dams are built when the water subsides after the rains, and a cylindrical basket six or eight feet in length beingadjusted at the outlet, the fish are driven into this from above. During the hot season the fruit of theghetuis thrown into the pools, and this stupefies the fish and causes them to float on the surface of the water, where they are easily caught.

13. Occupation.

The Korkus formerly lived principally by hunting, and practised the shifting cultivation in the forests which is now forbidden. Very few of them are landowners, but some large zamīndāri estates in Hoshangābād and Chhindwāra are held by Korku proprietors, who are protected by the prohibition of alienation. Though too improvident and lazy to be good cultivators, they are in great request as farmservants and ploughmen, being too honest to defraud their master of labour or material. A remarkable change has thus taken place from their former character of notorious robbers. They cultivate mainly in the hilly tracts and grow light grains, though some have colonised the waste lands of the upper Tapti valley in Nimār and raise good crops of wheat. They do not as a rule keep cattle other than the few oxen required for cultivating the soil and hauling out timber. Game of all kinds is caught by means of heavy log traps for the larger varieties such as sāmbhar, bear and spotted deer and even leopard; while hares, jungle-fowl and the smaller sort of game are caught under heavy stones held up by nicely adjusted strings. Occasionally, when in search of meat, a whole village will sally out into the forest. Theshikārihas generally a matchlock concealed in some hiding-place in the jungle, and once he is posted the others beat towards him and any animal that turns up is shot at. In the hot weather the water-hole and the bow and arrow play no small part in helping to fill the Korku larder. Another method of catching birds is to spread the pounded fruit of a certain parasitic airplant on a rock. A thick shining gum exudes which so entangles the feet of the smaller birds as to prevent their escape. Fish dams are built when the water subsides after the rains, and a cylindrical basket six or eight feet in length beingadjusted at the outlet, the fish are driven into this from above. During the hot season the fruit of theghetuis thrown into the pools, and this stupefies the fish and causes them to float on the surface of the water, where they are easily caught.

The Korkus formerly lived principally by hunting, and practised the shifting cultivation in the forests which is now forbidden. Very few of them are landowners, but some large zamīndāri estates in Hoshangābād and Chhindwāra are held by Korku proprietors, who are protected by the prohibition of alienation. Though too improvident and lazy to be good cultivators, they are in great request as farmservants and ploughmen, being too honest to defraud their master of labour or material. A remarkable change has thus taken place from their former character of notorious robbers. They cultivate mainly in the hilly tracts and grow light grains, though some have colonised the waste lands of the upper Tapti valley in Nimār and raise good crops of wheat. They do not as a rule keep cattle other than the few oxen required for cultivating the soil and hauling out timber. Game of all kinds is caught by means of heavy log traps for the larger varieties such as sāmbhar, bear and spotted deer and even leopard; while hares, jungle-fowl and the smaller sort of game are caught under heavy stones held up by nicely adjusted strings. Occasionally, when in search of meat, a whole village will sally out into the forest. Theshikārihas generally a matchlock concealed in some hiding-place in the jungle, and once he is posted the others beat towards him and any animal that turns up is shot at. In the hot weather the water-hole and the bow and arrow play no small part in helping to fill the Korku larder. Another method of catching birds is to spread the pounded fruit of a certain parasitic airplant on a rock. A thick shining gum exudes which so entangles the feet of the smaller birds as to prevent their escape. Fish dams are built when the water subsides after the rains, and a cylindrical basket six or eight feet in length beingadjusted at the outlet, the fish are driven into this from above. During the hot season the fruit of theghetuis thrown into the pools, and this stupefies the fish and causes them to float on the surface of the water, where they are easily caught.

14. Language.The Korkus have a language of their own which belongs to the Kolarian or Munda sub-family. Dr. Grierson says of it: “The Munda, sometimes called the Kolarian family, is probably the older branch of the Dravido-Munda languages. It exhibits the characteristics of an agglutinative language to an extraordinarily complete degree.” In the Central Provinces nearly 90 per cent of Korkus were returned as speaking their own language in 1911. Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “The language is in a state of decay and transition, and Hindi and Marāthi terms have crept into its vocabulary. But very few Gondi words have been adopted. A grammar of the Korku language by Drake has been printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta.”

14. Language.

The Korkus have a language of their own which belongs to the Kolarian or Munda sub-family. Dr. Grierson says of it: “The Munda, sometimes called the Kolarian family, is probably the older branch of the Dravido-Munda languages. It exhibits the characteristics of an agglutinative language to an extraordinarily complete degree.” In the Central Provinces nearly 90 per cent of Korkus were returned as speaking their own language in 1911. Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “The language is in a state of decay and transition, and Hindi and Marāthi terms have crept into its vocabulary. But very few Gondi words have been adopted. A grammar of the Korku language by Drake has been printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta.”

The Korkus have a language of their own which belongs to the Kolarian or Munda sub-family. Dr. Grierson says of it: “The Munda, sometimes called the Kolarian family, is probably the older branch of the Dravido-Munda languages. It exhibits the characteristics of an agglutinative language to an extraordinarily complete degree.” In the Central Provinces nearly 90 per cent of Korkus were returned as speaking their own language in 1911. Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “The language is in a state of decay and transition, and Hindi and Marāthi terms have crept into its vocabulary. But very few Gondi words have been adopted. A grammar of the Korku language by Drake has been printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta.”

1This article is largely based on a monograph contributed by Mr. H. R. Crosthwaite, Assistant Commissioner, Hoshangābād, and contains also extracts from a monograph by Mr. Ganga Prasād Khatri, Forest Divisional Officer, Betūl, and from the description of the Korkus given by Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott in theHoshangābād Settlement Report(1867), and by Major Forsyth in theNimār Settlement Report(1868–69).2Risley’sTribes and Castes of Bengal, Appendix V.: Korwā.3See also art. Kol.4The local term for the god Siva.5Bauhinia Vahlii.6Bassia latifolia,Buchanania latifolia,Gmelina arboreaandSterculia urens.7Nearly 3½ tons.8Paspalum scrobiculatum,Panicum psilopodium,Coix Lachryma,Eleusine coracana,Saccharum officianarum,Setaria italica,Oryza sativa.9Eugenia jambolana.10Makyātotha, Jondhrātotha, Dharsīima, Changri, Lobo, Khambi, Dagde, Kullya, Bursūma and Killībhasam.11Zizyphus jujuba.12The tiger-god.13The above passage is taken from Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott’sHoshangābād Settlement Reportwritten in 1867. Since that time the belief in the magical powers of the Bhumka has somewhat declined.14A small measure for grain.15Most of the information in this paragraph is taken from Mr. Ganga Prasād Khatri’s Report.16Boswellia serrata.

1This article is largely based on a monograph contributed by Mr. H. R. Crosthwaite, Assistant Commissioner, Hoshangābād, and contains also extracts from a monograph by Mr. Ganga Prasād Khatri, Forest Divisional Officer, Betūl, and from the description of the Korkus given by Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott in theHoshangābād Settlement Report(1867), and by Major Forsyth in theNimār Settlement Report(1868–69).

2Risley’sTribes and Castes of Bengal, Appendix V.: Korwā.

3See also art. Kol.

4The local term for the god Siva.

5Bauhinia Vahlii.

6Bassia latifolia,Buchanania latifolia,Gmelina arboreaandSterculia urens.

7Nearly 3½ tons.

8Paspalum scrobiculatum,Panicum psilopodium,Coix Lachryma,Eleusine coracana,Saccharum officianarum,Setaria italica,Oryza sativa.

9Eugenia jambolana.

10Makyātotha, Jondhrātotha, Dharsīima, Changri, Lobo, Khambi, Dagde, Kullya, Bursūma and Killībhasam.

11Zizyphus jujuba.

12The tiger-god.

13The above passage is taken from Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott’sHoshangābād Settlement Reportwritten in 1867. Since that time the belief in the magical powers of the Bhumka has somewhat declined.

14A small measure for grain.

15Most of the information in this paragraph is taken from Mr. Ganga Prasād Khatri’s Report.

16Boswellia serrata.

Back to IndexNext