CASTES

As elsewhere, Brahmans from a very small proportional of the total population. Most of them belong to the Deshastha sub-caste. There are number perdeshi or North Indian Brahmans who are generally not well-educated, but are physically strongly built. They are very strict in the observance of cast rules and will not tough the plough with their own hands. They are, however, willing to serve as constable, water-bearers and cooks. Maratha Brahmans are given to indulge in inordinate expenses at marriages and such other ceremonial occasions. They are fond of tasty food and eat all kind of chutnis and salads. If a Brahmans is imprisoned, he has to make a pilgrimage to Banaras and he has to go through a fresh thread ceremony all over. Similar procedure used to be adopted in the case of those who went abroad. But all such practices are becoming scarce. Their strict observance of changing into sacred silk dhotis has also disappeared during recent years.

The Ponvars originally belonged to Malva. The ponvar dynasty rule in Malva from the 9th to the 18th century. In the 12th century Nagpur was included in the Malva kingdom and the first settlement of the ponvars may probably be attributed to this period. They themselves say that they originally come to Nagardhan near Ramtek and then spread over the surrounding country. Some of the most influential members of the cast accompanied Chimanji Bhosle on his Cuttack expedition and on their return were rewarded with grants of land in Lanji and other tracts to the west of the Wainganga river which were largely covered with forests. Mr. Low describes the Ponvar as follows :-

'The Ponvar is to Balaghat what the Kunbi is to Bear or the Gujar to Hoshangabad ; but at the same time he is less entirely  attached to the soil and its cultivation and much more intelligent officers of the Agriculture Department is a Ponvar and several members of the caste have made large sums as forest and railway contractors in this District. Ponvar shikaris also are not un-common. They are generally averse to sedentary occupations and through quit ready to avail  themselves of the advantages of primary education, they do not as a rule care to carry their studies to point that would ensure their admission to higher ranks of Government services. Very few of them are to be found as patvaris, constables or peons. They are handsome race with intelligent faces usually fair with high forehead and often grey eyes. They are not as a rule above middle height but they active and hardworking and by no means deficient in courage and animal spirits or a sense of a humor. They are clannish in the extreme and to elucidate a criminal case in which no one but Ponvar are concerned as and in Ponvar  village is usually a harder task than an average police officer can tackle. At times, they are apt to affect, especially in conversation with Government officials, a whining and unpleasant tone, especially when pleading their claim their claim to some concession or other, and they are by no means lacking in astuteness and are good hands at a bargain. But they are a pleasant, intelligent and plucky race, not easily cast done by misfortune and always ready to attempt new enterprises in almost any direction except those any indication by the Department of Agriculture. their caste customs do not differ in any marked way from those of the other Hindus of the district. They used to allow polygamy. They bitterly recent and if able, heavily revenge any attempt on the virtue of their women by an outsider.

It is customary among the Ponvars for the parent supply clothes to a married daughter, so long as they live and during this period, a wife will not accept any clothes from her husband. At her marriage, a girl is given a dowry called khamora and she retains this for own use, her husband having no control over it. The wife is a very important person among the Ponvars and the husband will not anything to eat or drink out of the house, without her concurrence. The Ponvars will not eat off the ground but place their dishes on little iron stands. At a funeral, the Ponvars eat fried rice and sugar at the grave, which is peculiar as being contrary to the practice of other castes.

Kunbis in this district are the more numerous caste with exception of the Mehras. The Jhare Kunbis or those who belong to the Zadi or forest are the oldest settlers and have not doubt and admixture of Gond blood. Among them a father goes and ask for a bride for his son, in opposition to the usual practice of the caste. The Khedules, the next most numerous sub-division are said to derive their name from khede or village while the Khaires take it from the khair or catechu tree, no doubt because they formerly prepared catechu. The Khunbis, Mr. Napier say are dull, heavy race with little thought beyond their wheat and their bullocks. the caste eat flow. They have a great religious veneration of cattle and the pola day on which these are worshipped is their chief festival. On that day all the cattle of the village pass under the toran or arch of mango-leaves in order of the social position of their owners and the Khunbi feels in bitterly if he does not receives the precedence to which he considers himself entitled. The Lonaris appear to be a sub-caste of Khunbis who have come from the north, probably from Betul. In Bhandara, they have the customs of a Hindustani caste, performing their marriages by walking round the sacred post and speaking Hindi indoors.

Members of the Kohli caste were the builders of the great tanks of the Sakoli tahsil. Mr. Napier says, 'the Kohli sacrifices all to this sugarcane, his one ambition and one extravagance being to build a huge reservoir which will contain water for the irrigation of his sugarcane through the long, hot months. They have a remarkable faculty for selecting the best sites for tanks and each rates the other according to the size of his tanks and the strength of its embankment. The origin and the affinities of the Kohlis are obscure. according to one tradition they were brought by a Gond king of Chanda from Banaras on his return from a visit to that place. Colonel Lucie Smith, Settlement Officer of Chanda, states that they thought that their forefathers came from the south. They only fact that some of the Bhandara Kohlis can state about themselves is that their first settlement in the Central Provinces was at Lanji in Balaghat, from where they migrated to Bhandara. This rather points to the theory of  a Northern origin which is further supported by the similarity of the name to that of the Koiri caste of market gardeners in North India. Kohiri and Kohli are used there as variations of the caste name Koiri. On the other hand, neither in their speech no in their family names can any trace of Hindustani affinities be detected. Their dress used to be peculiar as they wear a short bandi or coat and a small head-cloth only about three feet long. Those who have pagris tie them in a similar fashion to the Gandlis who are oilmen from the Telugu country. Mr. Napier says : " The Kohlis have a splendid caste discipline and their quarrels are settled expeditiously by their panchayat without recourse  to courts of law. In their relations with people of other caste, they are not always so amiable". But they are generally considered to be distinctly amenable in character and have the reputation of being a very respectful to Government officers. If a guest comes to Kohli, the host himself officer to wash his to feet and if the guest be a Brahmans, insists on doing it. Like other castes engaged in cultivation, Kohlis married two or three wives when they could afford it, a wife being a more willing laborer than a hired servant, apart from the other advantages. For the sake of economy, all marriages in a village are generally celebrated on the same day, once a year. The officiating Brahman ascends the roof of a house and after beating a brass dish to warn the parties, repeats the marriages as the Son goes down. At this moment the couples place garlands of flowers on each other, the bridegroom ties the mangalsutram or neck less of black beads round the bride's neck and the marriage is completed. The bride's brother ties a thread round their marriage crowns and is given two rupees for untying it. At their weddings, they make models in wood of a Chamar's ranpi or knife, or khurpa, this custom perhaps indicating some connection with the Chamars ; or it may have arisen simply on account of the prominent part played by the mot or leather bag in the irrigation of sugarcane. Widow-marriage is current among Kowhais, but the widow is first married to a sword, representing her second husband who never attends in  person. Divorce is very seldom resorted to and involves severe penalties to both parties. The Kohlis ear fish but abstain from liquor.

The grazier caste or Gowaris from a low branch of Ahirs, closely connected with forest tribes. One of their sub-divisions is called Gond-Gowari and these are no doubt simply Gond herdsmen. The Gowaris themselves say that the Gond-Gowaris are the descendants of one of two brothers who accidentally ate the flesh of a cow. The Gowaris take a food from proper Gaolis, but the latter will not accept it at their hands. they do not employ Brahmans at their wedding, an elder member of caste officiating as priest. They permit widows to marry and if the husband is a bachelor, he is wedded to an acra or swallowwort plant or a copper ring before espousing the widow. This is his real marriage, as union with a widow is not viewed in that light. When a death occurs, the family of the deceased may not have social intercourse, until the elders of the caste have taken its principle member to the bazar where they purchase rice, vegetables and other foods and returning, feed him at his house. If he is a cultivator, he must also be taken to his field where, he is, as it were, inducted into it by the caste committee. If the cow of a Gowari dies with a rope round its neck, a great sin is held to have been committed and the offender must shave his mustaches and gives a substantial meal to his caste. The caste eat fowls. Both men and women tattoo their bodies, men usually having a dot between the eyebrows and the women two lines of dots with a longer one below them. The women wear metal bracelets on the right arm and glass bangles on the left arm and in contradistinction to other Maratha women who use red powder, have spangles on the forehead. The Gowari spend much of their time in the forests with their cattle and lead a simple life. A saying about them is: The Gond and Gowari drink only rise water from leaf cups and eat only boiled jovari off leaf-plates.

Another graziers caste who are found in small numbers are the Golars or Telugu graziers. They are a migratory race and wear formerly addicted to dacoity and cattle theft. The Golars are closely connected with the Holias, or Telugu leather workers and have the same family or section names. When a Golar dies a plate of cooked rice is laid on his body and then carried to the burning ghat. The Holias belonging to the same section go with it and before arrival, the plate of rice is laid on the ground and the Holias eat it.

The Mails or Marars grow vegetables and flowers. They allow a custom of what is called lamjhana or serving for a bride, which is purely Dravidian and shows their connection with the forest tribes. A young hard-working wife is never divorced, however bad her character may be, but an old women with abandoned for a very little cause. Marars women generally have a large glass spangle as an ornament for the forehead. The caste are as rule poor. They are quiet and industrious but their habit of polygamy often gave rice to family quarrels and also led to excessive sub-division of their holdings.

Telis to day have given up their traditional occupation of oil-pressing and have taken to agriculture and petty trading. The chief sub-divisions are Do-baile and Ek-baile, that is those who used to yoke to bullocks and one bullock, respectively to the oil mill. There are also the Andeles or growers of caster-oil plants. But these are now ordinary cultivators. The Telis are chiefly  concentrated in Pauni area. They consult a Mahar who is called Mohturya, to fix the date of their marriages. The Gandlis  were the originally the Telugu caste of oilmen but they  have now abandoned their profession and taken to  agriculture their by obtaining a rise in social status. They belong to the sect of  Lingayats and wear the lingam in a little silver casket round the neck or the waist. It is presented to them by a Brahman who comes from Madras at intervals and gives them a rudraksha bead which serves as the emblem of Mahadeva. They employ the Jangams or the priests of the Lingayats but some of them also avail of the services of Maratha Brahmans, probably considering it more respectable. They arrange marriages in Chandrapur district where the caste is very numerous. Those in Bhandara district, mostly live around Adyal.

Dhimars as a class are generally poor. Besides their calling of fishing and acting as boatmen they follow various other avocations such as growing singaras or water-nuts for which the tanks in Bhandara district afford much scope. They also cultivate tasar silk cocoons on Saj trees; sell fried rice and gram : breed pigs for sacrifice and act as household servants. At a Dhimars marriage, a net is given to the bridegroom and Shidori or coked food tied in a piece of cloth is given to the bride and they walk out together as if going to a river to fish, but the bride's brother comes up and stop them. A Dhimar will not touch wear or a shoe sewn with thread, because his net is made thread and he thinks that the sacred article is debased by being sewn into lather. It is a great degradation to a Dhimar to be struck with a shoe. The Injhvars are another boating caste. The name is simply a corruption of Binjhvar and  they are an offshoot of this, the comparatively civilised section of the Baiga tribe, formed into a caste, through the adoption of their special calling. The women of one of their sub-castes act as midwives. They are connected with the Gowaris and sometimes call themselves Dudh-Govaris. This is not surprising as the Govaris themselves were probably originally Gonds.

The Koshtis enjoy a higher social position than other weaver communities as they weave finer kinds of cloth, which the highest castes wear and they generally live in towns. The Nagpur Koshtis are on occasions turbulent. One sub-division, the Salewar Koshtis who are of Telugu origin, wear the sacred thread. The bulk of the caste eat flesh and fowls. Women are very useful to them in their work. The Koshtis have their family god installed on their weaving loom and they must not touch it with the foot as they think it would break on account of the insult to the god.

Gonds are probably the third caste in point of members. The local sub-divisions are the Raj Gonds, Dhur Gonds and grouped under the head "Other". The proportion of other zamindari families but the bulk of them on ordinary labourers. The Pradhans are considered as inferior to the Gonds and will take food from their hands, through the Gonds will not accept it from them. They celebrate their marriages in the open outside the village and sometimes the couple stand on a heap of refuse. The couple are carried on the shoulders of their relatives five times round the officiating priest who sit in the middle. Two spears are tied together to make an arch and water is poured over it while the couple stand beneath ; they then run out and the bridegroom hits the bride a blow on the back which should be given if possible before she runs from under the spears. The bridegroom must force an iron ring on to the bride's finger through she clenches her first and tries to prevent him. The blood of chicken is sprinkled over the hands of the pair and sometimes a chicken is slaughtered for each god worshiped by the bridegroom's sept. When a Gond girl wishes to show her preference for a man, she takes a pot of water mixed with turmeric and throws it over him in the presence of three of four witnesses and after this their marriage is celebrate. The Gonds are not considered as impure, through they eat pork and beef and the Ponvars, Govaris and other will take water from them. The Pradhans are, however, held to be impure are not touched. The Gonds are readily employed as farm-servants as they are honest and hardworking. At the time of Divali, the Gonds and other caste do the dhandhar or stick dance separately hitting two stick together. It is said that the Gonds dance less than they used to and that the famines have taken a good deal of their cheerfulness out of their lives. The statement was made in 1903 and during the last  70 years they have again improved much and become cheerful again.

The Halbas are originally a Dravidian tribe of laborers and their name has probably derived from hal which means a plough. Some, however, maintain that it comes from the Kannada word halbar which means the old ones or ancients that they come from the south with the Raja Warangal, fled to Bastar on being defeated by the Muhammedans. Leading families in Bhandara say they come from the north and migrated from Bhandara from the Makrai  State. In their marriage ceremony, these families place crown of palas leaves on the couple which is a practice of the northern castes. In other respects, however, they have adopted Maratha customs and celebrate the marriage by throwing coloured rice over the pair. Their principal god is Dulha Dev whom they call Motha Dev or the great god but they also revere Mahadev and Hanuman. They have two divisions, the bari or great and the lahan or small. The latter are the offspring of irregular unions. The caste eat flows and pork but not beef . Many of them are employed in the preparation and sale of poha, that is rice which is first boiled to take off the husks and then fried.