II CHADAR 401 in all are reported. Members of each sept draw the figure of the animal or plant after which it is named on the wall at marriages and worship it. They usually refuse to kill the totem animal, and the members of the Sugaria or pig sept throw away their earthen vessels if a pig should be killed in their sight, and clean their houses as if on the death of a member of the family. Marriage between members of the same sept is forbidden and also between first cousins and other near relations. The Chadārs say that the marriages of persons nearly related by blood are unhappy, and occasion serious consequences to the parties and their families. Girls are usually wedded in the fifth, seventh, ninth, or eleventh year of their age and boys between the ages of eight and sixteen. If an unmarried girl is seduced by a member of the caste she is married to him by the simple form adopted for the wedding of a widow. But if she goes wrong with an outsider of low caste she is permanently expelled. The remarriage of widows is permitted and divorce is also allowed, a deed being executed on stamped paper before the panchayat or caste committee. If a woman runs away from her husband to another man he must repay to the husband the amount expended on her wedding and give a feast to the caste. A Brahman is employed to fix the date of a wedding and sometimes for the naming of children, but he is only consulted and is never present at the ceremony. The caste venerate the goddess Devi, offering her a virgin she-goat in the month of Asārh (June-July). They worship their weaving implements at the Diwali and Holi festivals, and feed the crows in Kunwar (September-October) as representing the spirits of their ancestors. This custom is based on the superstition that a crow does not die of old age or disease, but only when it is killed. To cure a patient of fever they tie a blue thread, irregularly knotted, round his wrist. They believe that thunder-bolts are the arrows shot by Indra to kill his enemies in the lower world, and that the rainbow is Indra's bow; any one pointing at it will feel pain in his finger. The dead are mourned for ten days, and during that time a burning lamp is placed on the ground at some distance from the house, while on the tenth day a tooth-stick and water and food are set out for the VOL. II 2 D soul of the dead. They will not throw the first teeth of a child on to a tiled roof, because they believe that if this is done his next teeth will be wide and ugly like the tiles. But it is a common practice to throw the first teeth on to the thatched roof of the house. The Chadars will admit members of most castes of good standing into the community, and they cat flesh, including pork and fowls, and drink liquor, and will take cooked food from most of the good castes and from Kalārs, Khangārs and Kumhārs. The social status of the caste is very low, but they rank above the impure castes and are of cleanly habits, bathing daily and cleaning their kitchens before taking food. They are employed as village watchmen and as farmservants and field-labourers, and also weave coarse country cloth. notice Chamar, Chambhār.1—The caste of tanners and menial 1. General labourers of northern India. In the Central Provinces the of the Chamārs numbered about 900,000 persons in 1911. They caste. are the third caste in the Province in numerical strength, being exceeded by the Gonds and Kunbis. About 600,000 persons, or two-thirds of the total strength of the caste in the Province, belong to the Chhattisgarh Division and adjacent Feudatory States. Here the Chamārs have to some extent emancipated themselves from their servile status and have become cultivators, and occasionally even mālguzārs or landed proprietors; and between them and 1 This article is based on the Rev. E. M. Gordon's Indian Folk-Tales (London, Elliott & Stock, 1908), and the Central Provinces Monograph on the Leather Industry, by Mr. C. G. Chenevix Trench, C.S.; with extracts from Sir H. H. Risley's and Mr. Crooke's descriptions of the caste, and from the Berar Census Report (1881); on information collected for the District Gazetteers; and papers by Messrs. Durga Prasad Pande, Tahsīldār, Raipur; Ram Lal, Deputy Inspector of Schools, the Hindus a bitter and long-standing feud is in progress. Outside Chhattisgarh the Chamārs are found in most of the Hindi-speaking Districts whose population has been recruited from northern and central India, and here they are perhaps the most debased class of the community, consigned to the lowest of menial tasks, and their spirit broken by generations of servitude. In the Maratha country the place of the Chamārs is taken by the Mehras or Mahārs. In the whole of India the Chamārs are about eleven millions strong, and are the largest caste with the exception of the Brahmans. The name is derived from the Sanskrit Charmakāra, a worker in leather; and, according to classical tradition, the Chamar is the offspring of a Chandal or sweeper woman by a man of the fisher caste. The superior physical type of the Chamar has been noticed in several localities. Thus in the Kanara District of Bombay 2 the Chamar women are said to be famed for their beauty of face and figure, and there it is stated that the Padminis or perfect type of women, middle-sized with fine features, black lustrous hair and eyes, full breasts and slim waists, are all Chamārins. Sir D. Ibbetson writes that their women are celebrated for beauty, and loss of caste is often attributed to too great a partiality for a Chamarin. In Chhattisgarh the Chamārs are generally of fine stature and fair complexion; some of them are lighter in colour than the Chhattisgarhi Brāhmans, and it is on record that a European officer mistook a Chamār for a Eurasian and addressed him in English. This, however, is by no means universally the case, and Sir H. Risley considers that "The average Chamār is hardly distinguishable in point of features, stature or complexion from the members of those non-Aryan races from whose ranks we should primarily expect the profession of leather-dressers to be recruited." Again, Sir Henry Elliot, writing of the Chamārs of the North-Western Provinces, says: "Chamārs 5 4 1 There are other genealogies showing the Chamar as the offspring of various mixed unions. 2 Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xv. Kanara, P. 355. 3 The Hindus say that there are five classes of women, Padmini, Hastini, Chitrani and Shunkhini being the first 3 four, and of these Padmini is the most perfect. No details of the other classes are given. Răsmāla, i. p. 160. 4 Punjab Census Report (1881), p. 320. 5 Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Chamar. II GENERAL NOTICE OF THE CASTE 405 are reputed to be a dark race, and a fair Chamar is said to be as rare an object as a black Brahman : Karia Brahman, gor Chamar, that is, 'Do not cross a river in the same boat with a black Brahman or a fair Chamar,' both being of evil omen." The latter description would certainly apply to the Chamārs of the Central Provinces outside the Chhattisgarh Districts, but hardly to the caste as a whole within that area. No satisfactory explanation has been offered of this distinction of appearance of some groups of Chamārs. It is possible that the Chamārs of certain localities may be the descendants of a race from the north-west, conquered and enslaved by a later wave of immigrants; or that their physical development may owe something to adult marriage and a flesh diet, even though consisting largely of carrion. It may be noticed that the sweepers, who eat the broken food from the tables of the Europeans and wealthy natives, are sometimes stronger and better built than the average Hindu. Similarly, the Kasais or Muhammadan butchers are proverbially strong and lusty. But no evidence is forthcoming in support of such conjectures, and the problem is likely to remain insoluble. "The Chamārs," Sir H. Risley states,1 "trace their own pedigree to Ravi or Rai Das, the famous disciple of Rāmānand at the end of the fourteenth century, and whenever a Chamar is asked what he is, he replies a Ravi Dās. Another tradition current among them alleges that their original ancestor was the youngest of four Brahman brethren who went to bathe in a river and found a cow struggling in a quicksand. They sent the youngest brother in to rescue the animal, but before he could get to the spot it had been drowned. He was compelled, therefore, by his brothers to remove the carcase, and after he had done this they turned him out of their caste and gave him the name of Chamar." Other legends are related by Mr. Crooke in his article on the caste. 2. Endo The Chamārs are broken up into a number of endogamous subcastes. Of these the largest now consists of the gamous divisions. 1 Loc. cit. |