THE PEOPLE AND THEIR CULTURE

OTHER BACKWARD CLASSES

The Other Backward Classes consist of several communities each bearing a caste-name suggestive of the occupation once lasses. hereditarily followed. Where the hereditary occupation has ceased to be lucrative, strict adherance to it has naturally dwindled, but caste name has remained in tact. Of these communities some are mainly craftsmen, e.g.. beldars who work in stone and earth, hew stone and dig wells; sangars who weave and sell coarse blankets, their women doing as much work as the men; patharvats are stone dressers, and buruds who make bamboo baskets, winnowing fans, mats and cages. Communities such as berads (huntsmen) bhois (fishers), kolis (ferrymen), ghisadis (tinkers) and ramosis have now mostly turned into labourers. A number of small communities such as bavas, davaris, dambaris, garudis, gondhalis, jogtins, jogis, josis, kolhatis, nandivales; vaidus, valhars and vasudevs more or less live a life of mendicancy and can be classed as beggars. Communities such as kaikadis, kanjarbhats, korvis, lamans and vadars which shift from place to place to earn a living are " unsettled tribes", though a few families from each have now settled in villages and have taken to agriculture and allied pursuits.

Berads.

Berads, numbering 4,752, are found all over the district and chiefly in Gadhinglaj taluka. Enthoven writing about this community says, " the term Bed (pl. Bedaru) seems to mean hunters, from bete, hunting. The Marathas know the tribe as Berads and Musalmans as Bedars." They are a settled class and live in regular houses. They seem to have come to Kolha-pur from Belgaum under a naik (chief) called Gudadapa and settled at the village of Kuldini. Gudadapa gathered a large band of Berads and committed gang robberies in the surrounding districts. The hard-heartedness of berads became proverbial as they moved about the country committing highway robberies. They were then for several years steadily hunted down by Government and forced to change plundering for tillage.

In origin the Berads are an aboriginal tribe of the Kannada districts and it grew up by additions from many other castes, such as Kurub, Kaghaligars, Vakkals, etc., superior to the original stock in the social scale. They are dark, strong, muscular and coarse featured with gray lively eyes, flat nose, round high-boned cheeks, flabby lips, short and lank head hair, small moustache, and ear-locks. They live in one-storeyed houses with mud and sun-dried brick walls and tiled or thatched roofs. Though small and poor their houses are clean and neat. They own cattle and rear dogs which are very useful to them in watching their cows and buffaloes and in hunting. Their staple food is millet bread, pulse sauce seasoned with garlic, onions, salt, chillies and vegetables. They eat all kinds of flesh except beef, particularly on holidays and when they can afford it. They give caste feasts at births, betrothals, marriages, and deaths, when the guests are served with wheat cakes, pulse, vegetables, and mutton and sit all night singing lavanis (songs) to the accompaniment of the daph (drum) and the tuntune (one-stringed fiddle). The men, like local agriculturists, dress in a loincloth or a pair of drawers, a shoulder-cloth, a shirt and a coarse Maratha turban. The women wear a Maratha lugade and bodice and do not pass the end of the robe back between the feet. Both men and women have spare clothes for great days and wear ornaments like those worn by Marathas. Berads in Kolhapur worship all gods and goddesses, and their family deities are Mahadeo, Hanuman and Yallamma. They keep most holidays, chiefly Dasara, Divali and the Asvin and Margasirsa new moons, on which, like the Raddies of Karnatak, some perform the dangora (field rite). The religious minded fast on all Mondays of Sravan and on all ordinary Saturdays and Tuesdays when they take only one meal in the evening. Besides food cooked after bathing, on all big days they offer their gods cocoanuts, dry dates, sugar, molasses, camphor and incense. They have faith in soothsaying, astrology and sorcery. Their priests are ordinary Brahamans who conduct their marriages, but at deaths they employ a Lingayat priest to conduct the obsequial ceremonies. They have a hereditary married guru (religious teacher), who belongs to their own caste and is the religious and social head of their community.

Like other Hindus of the region, Berads worship goddess Satvai on the fifth day after the birth of a child. On that day, either five small stones or five small heaps of jowar grains are worshipped in the name of the goddess, and the stone under which the after birth was buried received similar attention.

For the purpose of marriage Berads observe the exogamous subdivisions called byadags, marriage in the same byadag being prohibited. The custom of accepting dowry by the bride is current. On a day previous to the marriage day, the persons of the bride and bridegroom are besmeared with turmeric powder at their places. During marriage rites, the couple stands opposite each other on pats (low wooden stools), with a curtain of cloth held between it. A Brahman priest chants marriage hymns and throws rice grains over the couple. As soon as the curtain is removed the bride and the bridegroom exchange their places five times and garland each other. Then the Brahman priest ties into a knot the ends of the couple's garments and on behalf of the bridegroom fastens a mangal-sutra (lucky thread) round the bride's neck.

Divorce as well as widow marriage are permissible by custom. However, a widow cannot marry in the byadag of the deceased husband, and if a bachelor was to marry a widow he had first to undergo a marriage ceremony with a rui shrub. The custom of dedicating girls as devdassis either in the name of goddess Yallamma or god Hanuman to render them eligible for prostitution seems to have now died out in the community. The married dead are cremated; children and bachelors are buried. The chief mourner moves five times round the lighted pyre with a trickling earthen water pot on his shoulder. On return to the house of the deceased from the cremation ground, the mourners after a plunge into water keep a grass blade on the spot where the deceased had breathed his last. On the third day the chief mourner collects ashes from the burnt pyre and later with due ceremony may install in the house for worship a Maka, an impression of a figure on a small metal piece. From that day the deceased becomes a deified ancestor.

In the past, many members of the community often used to indulge in anti-social activities but, thanks to educative attempts at reforming them, the community have now generally become a class of hardworking husbandmen. At some places they are also engaged as village watchmen especially for guarding the fields of agriculturists and also the village. They are slowly taking advantage of educational facilities and the educated are going in for Government service such as teachers, talathis, clerks, peons, police, etc.

Vadars.

Vadars (quarrymen) are returned as numbering 4032 in the district. They are divided into three divisions, namely, Dagad of Kalla Vadars known as Kalkutagis, Gadi Vadars, and Mati Vadars. In Kolhapur city Kalkutagis were the earliest residents, the other two divisions being reported to have come to the city in the first decade of the present century. Vadars are black, strong, well built and generally spare, and their home speech is Telugu. They live outside a village in crude huts made of sticks, mats and sugarcane leaves. Their staple food is millet, but they eat fish, fowl and flesh of all kinds, Kalkutagis do the work of stone dressing and stone building; Gadi Vadars of quarrying stones and transporting them on low solid wheeled carts; Mati Vadars sink wells and do excavations and earth work. These are their traditional occupations and even today most of the Vadars stick to them. Some have evolved into petty contractors who undertake earth or stone work.

Formerly the divisions of Vadars used to dine together but did not inter-marry, but now they have ceased to be independent sub-castes as they take food with one another and intermarry. At present there is no pancayat (caste council) or caste elder among them, but 50 years back there used to be a caste elder known as thekedar, who settled disputes, arranged and permitted marriages and whose authority was unchallenged. He had also the authority to fine people in the community for misbehaviour etc. Some of the traditional customs among the community still persist; for instance, their women do not wear the bodice and girls who could wear glass bangles on both hands before marriage wear glass bangles on the left hand and a kada (brass bangle) on the right hand when married. However, Kalkutagis in Kolhapur city seem to have now abandoned the customs without being socially ostracised.

On the fifth day after the birth of a child as Vadars feast married women and name the child on the night of the eleventh. They do not consult astrologers for lucky days or for a name. The mother is considered impure for thirty days after child birth. Their favourite gods are Maruti and Vyankoba, they keep the usual fasts and festivals. Their marriages generally occupy two particular days, viz. Sunday and Monday. On Sunday the turmeric ceremony takes place. On Monday morning an iron post is fixed in the ground and the bride and the bridegroom are made to stand near it. Rice and holy water given by the guru (teacher) are thrown over the boy and girl but no texts are recited. A dinner party on that day ends the ceremony. Divorce as well as widow marriages are allowed. However, a widow is not permitted to marry a member of the deceased husband's family. The dead are either cremated or buried. The community is hardworking, industrious and prepared to go wherever it can get work.

Dombaris and Kolhatis.

The communities classed as beggars display peculiarities of professional skill which by themselves are very interesting. Some of them enjoying showmanship with begging, e.g. Dombaris or Kolhati form a nomadic community of acrobats. On Gujarat side a division of the community is known as Gopals. Dombaris earn a living as tumblers, rope-dancers, and beggars. Boys and girls are trained to tumble at the age of five and are good tumblers at the age of eleven with appliances such as a drum, a flute, a leather strap, ropes and poles fifteen to twenty feet long. They wander from place to place giving performances of athletic games and feats. Dombari women 'are also known as expert tattooers.

As Kolhatis the hereditary occupation of the community is to prepare combs and other articles from horns of animals and form a Tamasa troupe. In a Tamasa performance men play on muscial instruments like dholaki, tuntune, daph, zanj, etc. while women dance.

Garudis.

Garudis who are itinerant jugglers and snake-charmers live by performing with snakes and by begging. They are found all over the district but are said to have come from Saurashtra.

Vaidus.

Vaidus, who appear to have come into the district from the Karnatak, are a nomadic community of drug-hawkers. Their home tongue is Telugu, but with others they speak a corrupt Marathi. They generally camp outside towns and villages in cloth or mat tents which they carry on donkeys. When they go drug-hawking, they sling across their shoulder a bamboo pole hung with one or two bags containing healing roots, herbs, hides and poisons. They are ready to heal with their medicines any disease from a cold to a fever. The women of the community beg and sell herbs, needles and glass beads. No Vaidu is allowed to work as labourer; if one is found working for hire, he is excommunicated.

Bavas.

Some communities of beggars profess begging on religious ground. Bairagis (ascetics) who admit all Hindus, except what were formerly known as the depressed classes, within their fold are a class of religious beggars and wander all over the country, sometimes in bands and sometimes singly. They dress in ochre-coloured clothes, smear their bodies with ashes and grow their hair long, wearing it either dishevelled or coiled round the head. A few of them refrain from cutting their hair and nails and undergo bodily toutures. They call themselves devotees of Visnu and visit many of the famous Visnu shrines. Their gurus (teachers) who are also Bairagis have maths (monasteries) in different holy places in India. The guru is succeeded by his favourite disciple. When a man wishes to become a Bairagi he approaches a distinguished Bairagi and tells him about his wish to become his cela (disciple). On a fixed day the novice is stripped of his clothes and is given a loin cloth to wear and a homa (burnt-offering) is made. The" novice then takes a vow of poverty, celibacy and pilgrimage to all holy places in India.

Gosavis.

Similar to Bairagis there exists a community of religious beggars known as Gosavis found either wandering or settled all over the district. They are divided into five classes: Ban, Bharti, Gori, Puri and Sarasvati, who except Bhartis and Puris, eat together and intermarry. They are recruited from all Hindus except what were formerly known as the depressed classes. The body of Gosavis include those who willingly became Gosavis and children presented to Gosavis by their parents. Gosavis wear ochre-coloured clothes like Bairagis but unlike them dine with Kunbis and eat goats, sheep and fowls. They freely smoke tobacco and hemp and many of them were reported to have had no compunction to drink country liquor before the introduction of prohibition. Though at the initiation they take a vow of poverty and celibacy, many of them are known to have been traders, money-lenders, and a few were inam (rent-free) landholders. In former days they wandered in armed bands, waged war with Bairagis, and plundered the country they passed through. Some Gosavis marry and some keep mistresses, and those who live a single life are generally attended by a cela (disciple) who is their heir and successor.

Joshis.

Joshis, who are also known as Cudbudke Joshis, Davaris or Pingles, wander from house to house and village to village telling fortunes and begging. A Cudbudke Joshi got up for his begging tour is a quaint figure. He is dressed in a large dirty white turban with a red cloth turned over it, or a long white coat reaching below his knees and a tattered silk-bordered shoulder-cloth. In one hand is a book or almanac by referring to which he pretends to foretell fortunes and in the other is the Cudbudke, the eponymous hourglass-shaped drum. A knotted cord is fastened to the drum and when the drum is, shaken the knot strikes against the membrane of the drum and makes a tinkling sound. It is a common practice with some Joshis to rise at three in the morning and go to some ruined buildings or large trees outside the village, where they consult the spotted owlet (pingla), whose notes they profess to understand. About four or five o'clock they come back to the village and, standing at the door of each house and sounding their drum, awaken the people and tell them their fortune. Their forecast may forebode evil for some inmates who, growing uneasy over it, consult the Joshi and pay his fees. This occupation of the Cudbudke Joshis is declining in popularity as few believe in their prophecies,

Gondhalis and Others

Gondhalis call themselves votaries of Ambabai of Kolhapur, Bhavani of Tuljapur and many other goddesses. They beg from . door to door for grain, clothes, and money in the name of the goddesses. Some form a troupe and perform the gondhal dance with the accompaniment of sambal, tuntune and tal and entertain people with their songs. Davris play on the daur drum and have the ancient and still respected privilege of living in the out-houses of the temples of Rankoba and Bahiroba. The Jogtis belong to a religious order recruited from all castes of Hindus. The order is kept up by children dedicated to the goddess Yellamma, the boys so dedicated being known as Jogtis. They make their living by begging in the name of the goddess. Nandivalas take their name from Nandi, a trained bull dressed in smart clothes with fringes of jingling bells and bell necklaces. They beg from house to house leading the Nandi and making him nod at the signal of a peculiar note they sound on the drum by percussion with a bent stick. Vasudevs are professional beggars who for begging purpose rise early in the morning, put on a tall hat adorned with peacock feathers and a brass top, and a full skirted coat. Equipped with tals (two metal cups), ciplyas (two wodden pincers), brass bells, jingling rings and a wooden whistle, they move about the streets begging from door to door, singing to the accompaniment of the tals and ciplyas. Sometimes, when they are three or four, they dance in circle.

Scheduled Tribes.

THERE ARE TWO COMMUNITIES, viz., (1) Phanse-pardhis, and (2) Konkanas in Kolhapur district who are classed as Scheduled Tribes'.

Phanse-Paradhis.

Phanse-paradhis who derive their name from phanse -noose, and paradhis-hunters, belong to a wandering tribe of game hunters. They number about 165 in Kolhapur district. They are known to have once carried the business of snaring and hunting wild animals and birds with the help of nets and hunting dogs. As a class Phanse-paradhis are robust, well-built and of medium statue. They are rather dark in complexion. Migrating originally from Saurashtra they speak Gujarati, but also know Kannad, Marathi and Hindustani. They profess Hinduism, worship Hindu gods and goddesses, the goddess Tulajabhavani receiving special reverence. They are superstitious and have a strong faith in sorcery and witchcraft.

The community is spread over in different camps, each camp consisting of several families. A camp has got its own leader called patil. There are a number of exogamous divisions called kuls in the community and they bear Marathi surnames such as Chavan, Kale, Nelkar, Powar, Rathod, Shete etc. It is said these kuls had names of Gujarati origin, such as Khetiya, Khidiya, Mandhiya, Narakhatia, Painpalajiya, Saundia, etc. The kuls found in Kolhapur are mainly Chavan. Kale and Powar, each assigned with a hereditary social function. The chief leader or patil comes from the Kale kul, the sarpanch belongs to Chavan kul and a Pawar presides over all religious affairs.

Marriages between members of the same clan (surname) or of allied clan are prohibited. Polygamy which was once allowed and practised is now prevented by the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The offer of marriage comes from the boy's father and is accepted by the chief person from the bride by accepting a vida and a rupee from the boy's father. A betrothal ceremony may take place several years in advance, the marriage being celebrated when the couple comes of age. A convenient day for the marriage is fixed by a person from the Pawar clan (surname) who also officiates at the ceremony. On the marriage day the bride and bridegroom are decked with chaplets of pipal leaves, a tassel of thread hanging over each temple. The skirts of the bride's and bridegroom's robes are knotted together seven times, the priest and the guests throw red rice over the pair's heads, and the marriage is complete.

Divorce as well as widow marriage are allowed. A widow can marry her deceased husband's younger brother. Any other person who is desirous of marrying the widow has to give Rs. 100 to Rs. 300 to her parents or guardians. Widow marriage is performed at night at the widow's place and the only ceremony followed is the exchange of a dish of shevaya (spaghetti) by the couple.

The community cremates the dead and observes funeral and post-funeral rites similar to those of other backward communities in the region.

Phanse-paradhis, as they generally live away from village sites, cannot avail of school facilities available to other villagers and have therefore remained backward in education. Efforts are being made to start one Ashram school for their children and they are being persuaded to settle at Ujalaiwadi. A co-operative farming society has been organised for the benefit of Phanse-paradhis and Kanjarbhats and a land measuring about 325 acres has been given to them for cultivation. A co-operative housing society has been organised and a land of 20 acres granted to them for their housing accommodation. Further, a co-operative labour society has been formed and registered for them and Government has granted a loan of Rs. 5,000 for the working of the society. Because of these measures the community appears to have changed a great deal. They are now engaged in the agriculture and other suitable pursuits with the result that their former anti-social tendency seems to be on the wane.

Konkanas.

Konkanas with a negligible population of about 49 in the district are mainly found in Radhanagari taluka and Gagan-bavda mahal. They live on agriculture and agricultural labour and by sale of wood brought from the forests. They also rear cattle and sheep. Their customs are similar to those of other backward Hindu communities in the district.

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