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festivals, and a little ghi is poured out in her honour by way of incense. When the juāri harvest is gathered, dalias or cakes of boiled juāri and a ewe are offered to Marīmāta. They do not revere the Hindu sacred trees, the pīpal and banyan, nor the basil plant, and will readily cut them down. They both burn and bury the dead. The Jadons burn all married persons, but if they cannot afford firewood they touch the corpse with a burning cinder and then bury it. The Gaikwārs always bury their dead, the corpse being laid naked on its back with the feet pointing to the south. On returning from the burial-ground each relative of the deceased gives one roti or wheaten cake to the bereaved family, and they eat, sharing the cakes with the panchayat. Bread is also presented on the second day, and on the third the family begin to cook again. Mourning lasts for ten days, and on the last day the house is cleaned and the earthen pots thrown out; the clothes of the family are washed and the males are shaved.

Ten balls of rice cooked

in milk are offered to the soul of the dead person and a

feast is given to the caste. remains impure for five weeks.

After a birth the mother
For the first five days both

the mother and child are bathed daily. The navel cord and after-birth are buried by the midwife in a rubbish heap. When the milk teeth fall out they are placed in a ball of the dung of an ass and thrown on to the roof of the house. It is considered that the rats or mice, who have very good and sharp teeth, will take them and give the child good teeth in exchange. Women are impure for five days. during the menstrual period. When a girl attains maturity a ceremony called god-bharni is performed. The neighbours are invited and songs are sung and the girl is seated in the chauk or pattern of lines traced with flour. She is given new clothes and bangles by her father, or her father-in-law if she is married, and rice and plantains, cocoanuts and other fruits are tied up in her skirt. This is no doubt done so that the girl may in like manner be fruitful, the cocoanuts perhaps being meant to represent human heads, as they usually do.

The Kaikāris eat flesh, including pork and fowls, but not beef. In Nimār the animals which they eat must have

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301

customs

their throats cut by a Muhammadan with the proper 4. Social formula, otherwise it is considered as murder to slaughter and posithem. Both men and women drink liquor. They take tion. food cooked with water from Kunbis and Mālis and take water from the same castes, but not from Dhīmars, Nais or Kahārs. No caste will take food from a Kaikāri. Their touch is considered to defile a Brahman, Bania, Kalār and other castes, but not a Kunbi. They are not allowed to enter temples but may live inside the village. Their status is thus very low. They have a caste panchayat or committee, and punishments are imposed for the usual offences. Permanent exclusion from caste is rarely or never inflicted, and even a woman who has gone wrong with an outsider may be readmitted after a peculiar ceremony of purification. The delinquent is taken to a river, tank or well, and is there shaved clean. Her tongue is branded with a ring or other article of gold, and she is then seated under a wooden shed having two doors. She goes in by one door and sits in the shed, which is set on fire. She must remain seated until the whole shed is burning and is then allowed to escape by the other door. A young boy of the caste is finally asked to eat from her hand, and thus purified she is readmitted to social intercourse. Fire is the great purifier, and this ceremony probably symbolises the immolation of the delinquent and her new birth. A similar ordeal is practised among the Korvas of Bombay, and this fact may be taken as affording further evidence of the identity of the two castes.1 The morals of the caste are, however, by no means good, and some of them are said to live by prostituting their women. The dog is held especially sacred as with all worshippers of Khandoba, and to swear by a dog is Khandoba's oath and is considered the most binding. The Kaikāris are of dark colour and have repulsive features. They do not bathe or change their clothes for days together. They are also quarrelsome, and in Bombay the word Kaikārin is a proverbial term for a dirty shrew. Women are profusely tattooed, because tattooing is considered to be a record of the virtuous acts performed in this world and must be displayed to the deity after death. If no marks 1 Bombay Gazetteer (Campbell), vol. xxi. p. 172.

5. Occupation.

1. Origin.

of tattooing are found the soul is sent to hell and punished for having acquired no piety.

Like

In

Basket-making is the traditional occupation of the Kaikāris and is still followed by them. They do not however make baskets from bamboos, but from cotton-stalks, palm-leaves and grass. In the south they are principally employed as carriers of stone, lime, bricks and gravel. most wandering castes they have a bad character. Berār the Rān Kaikāris are said to be the most criminal class.1 They act under a chief who is elected for life, and wander about in the cold weather, usually carrying their property on donkeys. Their ostensible occupations are to make baskets and mend grinding mills. A notice of them in Lawrence's Settlement Report of Bhandāra (1867) stated that they were then professional thieves, openly avowing their dependence on predatory occupations for subsistence, and being particularly dexterous at digging through the walls of houses and secret pilfering.

Kalanga. A cultivating caste of Chhattisgarh numbering 1800 persons in 1911. In Sambalpur they live principally in the Phuljhar zamindāri on the border, between Chhattisgarh and the Uriya track. The Kalangas appear to be a Dravidian tribe who took up military service and therefore adopted a territorial name, Kalanga being probably derived from Kalinga, the name of the sea-board of the Telugu country. The Kalangas may be a branch of the great Kalingi tribe of Madras. They have mixed much with the Kawars, and in Phuljhar say that they have three branches, the Kalingia, Kawar and Chero Kalangas; Kawar and Chero are names for the same tribe, and the last two branches are thus probably a mixture of Kalingis and Kawars, while the first comprises the original Kalingis. The Kalangas themselves, like the Kawars, say that they are the descendants of the Kauravas of the Mahābhārata, and that they came from northern India with the Rājas of Patna, whom they still serve. But their features indicate their Dravidian descent as also their social customs, especially that of killing a cock with the bare hands on 1 Berar Census Report (1881), p. 141.

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303

the birth of a child, and anointing the infant's forehead with its blood. They have not retained their Telugu language, however, and like the Kawars now speak a dialect of Chhattisgarhi at home, while many also know Uriya.

divisions.

The Kalangas have no real endogamous divisions but 2. Suba large number of exogamous groups or bargas, the names of which are derived from animals, plants, or material objects, nicknames, occupations or titles. Instances of the totemistic groups are Barha the wild boar, Magar the crocodile, Bichhi the scorpion, Saria a variety of rice, Chhati a mushroom, Khumri a leaf umbrella, and several others. The members of the group revere the animal, plant or other object from which it takes its name and would refuse to injure it or use it for food. They salute the object whenever they see it. Instances of other group names are Manjhi a headman, Behra a cook, Gunda dusty, Kapāt a shutter, Bhundi a hole, Chīka muddy, Bhil a tribe, Rendia quarrelsome, and Bersia a Thug or strangler. Some of the nicknames or titles are curious, as for instance Kapāt, a shutter, which stands for gate-keeper, and Bhundi, a hole, which indicates a defective person. Some of the group names are those of other castes, and this probably indicates the admission of families of other castes among the Kalangas. One of the groups is called Kusundi, the meaning of which is not known, but whenever any one of the caste gets maggots in a wound and is temporarily expelled, it is a member of the Kusundi group, if one is available, who gives him water on his readmission into caste. This is a dangerous service, because it renders the performer liable to the burden of the other's sin, and when no Kusundi is present five or seven men of other groups combine in doing it so as to reduce the risk to a fraction. But why this function of a scapegoat should be imposed upon the Kusundi group, or whether it possesses any peculiar sanctity which protects it from danger, cannot be explained.

3. Mar

Marriage within the same barga or group is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. Marriage is usually riage. adult and matches are arranged between the parents of the parties. A considerable quantity of grain with five pieces of cloth and Rs. 5 are given to the father of the bride.

A

4. Social position.

marriage-shed is erected and a post of the mahua tree fixed
inside it. Three days before the wedding a Gānda goes
to the shed with some pomp and worships the village gods
there. In the ceremony the bridegroom and bride proceed
separately seven times round the post, this rite being
performed for three days running. During the four days
of the wedding the fathers of the bride and bridegroom
each give one meal to the whole caste on two days, while
the other meal on all four days is given to the wedding
party by the members of the caste resident in the village.
This may be a survival of the time when all members of
the village community were held to be related. Widow-
marriage is allowed, but the widow must obtain the consent
of the caste people before taking a second husband, and a
feast must be given to them. If the widow has no children
and there are no relatives to succeed to her late husband's
property, it is expended on feeding the caste people.
Divorce is permitted and is effected by breaking the
woman's bangles in front of the caste panchayat. In
memory perhaps of their former military profession the
Kalangas worship the sword on the 15th day of Shrāwan
and the 9th day of Kunwar. Offerings are made to the
dead in the latter month, but not to persons who have died
a violent death. The spirits of these must be laid lest they
should trouble the living, and this is done in the following
manner a handful of rice is placed at the threshold of the
house, and a ring is suspended by at hread so as to touch
the rice. A goat is then brought up, and when it eats the
rice, the spirit of the dead person is considered to have
entered into the goat, which is thereupon killed and eaten
by the family so as to dispose of him once for all. If the
goat will not eat the rice it is made to do so.
The spirit
of a man who has been killed by a tiger must, however,
be laid by the Sulia or sorcerer of the caste, who goes
through the formula of pretending to be a tiger and of
mauling another sorcerer.

The Kalangas are at present cultivators and many of them are farmservants. They do not now admit outsiders into the caste, but they will receive the children begotten on any woman by a Kalanga man. They take food cooked.

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