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II

OCCUPATION

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fasts all night, and next morning is dressed in a white cloth, and water is poured over her head from a new earthen pot. A piece of iron is heated red hot between cowdung cakes, and she must take up this in her hand and walk five steps with it, also applying it to the tip of her tongue. If she is burnt her unchastity is considered to be proved, and the idea is therefore apparently that if she is innocent the deity will intervene to save her.

The Dukar Kolhāti males, Major Gunthorpe states, are 6. Occupaa fine manly set of fellows. They hunt the wild boar with tion. dogs, the men armed with spears following on foot. They show much pluck in attacking the boar, and there is hardly a man of years who does not bear scars received in fights with these animals. The villagers send long distances for a gang to come and rid them of the wild pig, which play havoc with the crops, and pay them in grain for doing so. But they are also much addicted to crime, and when they have decided on a dacoity or house-breaking they have a good drinking-bout and start off with their dogs as if to hunt the boar. And if they are successful they bury the spoil, and return with the body of a pig or a hare as evidence of what they have been doing. Stolen property is either buried at some distance from their homes or made over to the safe keeping of men with whom the women of the caste may be living. Such men, who become intimate with the Kolhātis through their women, are often headmen of villages or hold other respectable positions, and are thus enabled to escape suspicion. Boys who are to become acrobats are taught to jump from early youth. The acrobats and dancing-girls go about to fairs and other gatherings and make a platform on a cart, which serves as a stage for their performances. The dancing-girl is assisted by her admirers, who accompany her with music. Some of them are said now to have obtained European instruments, as harmoniums or gramophones. They do not give their performances on Thursdays and Mondays, which are considered to be unlucky days. In Bombay they are said to make a practice of kidnapping girls, preferably of high caste, whom they sell or bring up as prostitutes.1

1 Ind. Ant. iii. p. 185, Satāra Gazetteer, p. 119.

1. General notice of the caste.

KOLI

LIST OF PARAGRAPHS

1. General notice of the caste.
2. Subdivisions.

3. Exogamous divisions.

4. Widow-marriage or divorce. 5. Religion.

6. Disposal of the dead.

7. Social rules.

Koli. A primitive tribe akin to the Bhils, who are residents of the western Satpūra hills. They have the honorific title of Naik. They numbered 36,000 persons in 1911, nearly all of whom belong to Berar, with the exception of some 2000 odd, who live in the Nimār District. These have hitherto been confused with the Kori caste. The Koris or weavers are also known as Koli, but in Nimar they have the designation of Khangar Koli to distinguish them from the tribe of the same name. The Kolis proper are found in the Burhanpur tahsil, where most villages are said to possess one or two families, and on the southern Satpūra hills adjoining Berār. They are usually village servants, their duties being to wait on Government officers, cleaning their cooking-vessels and collecting carts and provisions. The duties of village watchman or kotwär were formerly divided between two officials, and while the Koli did the most respectable part of the work, the Mahār or Balāhi carried baggage, went messages, and made the prescribed reports to the police. In Berār the Kolis acted for a time as guardians of the hill passes. A chain of outposts or watch towers ran along the Satpura hills to the north of Berār, and these were held by Kolis and Bhils, whose duties were to restrain the predatory inroads of their own tribesmen, in the same manner as the Khyber Rifles now guard the passes on the North-West Frontier. And

PART II

GENERAL NOTICE OF THE CASTE

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again along the Ajanta hills to the south of the Berar valley a tribe of Kolis under their Naiks had charge of the ghats or gates of the ridge, and acted as a kind of local militia paid by assignments of land in the villages.1 Nimar the Kolis, like the Bhils, made a trade of plunder and dacoity during the unsettled times of the eighteenth century, and the phrase 'Nahal, Bhil, Koli' is commonly used in old Marathi documents to designate the hillrobbers as a class. The priest of a Muhammadan tomb in Burhanpur still exhibits an imperial Parwāna or intimation from Delhi announcing the dispatch of a force for the suppression of the Kolis, dated A.D. 1637. In the Bombay Presidency, so late as 1804, Colonel Walker wrote: "Most Kolis are thieves by profession, and embrace every opportunity of plundering either public or private property." The tribe are important in Bombay, where their numbers amount to more than 1 million. It is supposed that the common term 'coolie' is a corruption of Koli,3 because the Kolis were usually employed as porters and carriers in western India, as 'slave' comes from Slav. The tribe have also given their name to Colaba. Various derivations have been given of the meaning of the word Koli,5 and according to one account the Kolis and Mairs were originally the same tribe and came from Sind, while the Mairs were the same as the Meyds or Mihiras who entered India in the fifth century as one of the branches of the great White Hun horde. Again, since the settlement of the Mairs in Gujarat," the writer of the Gujarat Gazetteer continues, reverses of fortune, especially the depression of the Rājpūts under the yoke of the Muhammadans in the fourteenth century, did much to draw close the bond. between the higher and middle grades of the warrior class. Then many Rājpūts sought shelter among the Kolis and married with them, leaving descendants who still claim a Rājpūt descent and bear the names of Rājpūt families. Apart from this, and probably as the result of an original sameness of race, in some parts of Gujarāt and Kathiawār

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1 Lyall's Berar Gazetteer, pp. 103-5.

2 Kathiawar Gazetteer, p. 140. 3 Crooke's edition of Hobson-Jobson, art. Koli.

4 Bombay City Census Report (1901) (Edwards).

Gujarat Gazetteer, p. 238.

2. Subdivisions.

intermarriage goes on between the daughters of Talabda
Kolis and the sons of Rajpūts." Thus the Thakur of
Talpuri Mahi Kantha in Bombay calls himself a Prāmara
Koli, and explains the term by saying that his ancestor,
who was a Prāmara or Panwār Rājpūt, took water at a
Koli's house.1
As regards the origin of the Kolis, however,
whom the author of the Gujarat Gazetteer derives from the
White Huns, stating them to be immigrants from Sind,
another and perhaps more probable theory is that they are
simply a western outpost of the great Kol or Munda tribe,
to which the Korkus and Nahals and perhaps the Bhils
may also belong. Mr. Hira Lal suggests that it is a common
custom in Marathi to add or alter so as to make names
end in i. Thus Halbi for Halba, Koshti for Koshta, Patwi
for Patwa, Wanjāri for Banjāra, Gowari for Goala; and in
the same manner Koli from Kol. This supposition appears
a very reasonable one, though there is little direct evidence.
The Nimar Kolis have no tradition of their origin beyond
the saying-

Siva ki jholi
Us men ka Koli,

or The Koli was born from Siva's wallet.'

In the Central Provinces the tribe have the five subdivisions of Surajvansi, Malhār, Bhilaophod, Singade, and the Muhammadan Kolis. The Surajvansi or 'descendants of

The Malhār or Pānbhari sub

the sun' claim to be Rājpūts.
tribe are named from their deity Malhari Deo, while the
alternative name of Pānbhari means water-carrier. The
Bhilaophod extract the oil from bhilwa2 nuts like the Nahals,
and the Singade (sing, horn, and gādna, to bury) are so called
because when their buffaloes die they bury the horns in their
compounds. As with several other castes in Burhānpur and
Berar, a number of Kolis embraced Islām at the time of the
Muhammadan domination and form a separate subcaste.

In Berār the principal group is that of the Mahadeo
Kolis, whose name may be derived from the Mahādeo or
Pachmarhi hills. This would tend to connect them with the
They are divided

Korkus, and through them with the Kols.

1 Golden Book of India, s.v.

2 Semecarpus anacardium, the marking-nut tree.

II

EXOGAMOUS DIVISIONS

535

into the Bhās or pure and the Akarāmāse or impure Kolis.1 In Akola most of the Kolis are stated to belong to the Kshatriya group, while other divisions are the Naiks or soldiers, the begging Kolis, and the Watandārs who are probably hereditary holders of the post of village watchman.2

3

divisions.

The tribe have exogamous septs of the usual nature, but 3. Exothey have forgotten the meaning of the names, and they gamous cannot be explained. In Bombay their family names are the same as the Maratha surnames, and the writer of the Ahmadnagar Gazetteer considers that some connection exists between the two classes. A man must not marry a girl of his own sept nor the daughter of his maternal uncle. Girls are usually married at an early age. A Brāhman is employed to conduct the marriage ceremony, which takes place at sunset: a cloth is held between the couple, and as the sun disappears it is removed and they join hands amid the clapping of the assembled guests. Afterwards they march seven times round a stone slab surrounded by four plough-yokes. Among the Rewa Kantha Kolis the boy's father must not proceed on his journey to find a bride for his son until on leaving his house he sees a small bird called devi on his right hand; and consequently he is sometimes kept waiting for weeks, or even for months. When the betrothal is arranged the bridegroom and his father are invited to a feast at the bride's house, and on leaving the father must stumble over the threshold of the girl's door; without this omen no wedding can prosper.*

or divorce.

The remarriage of widows is permitted, and the ceremony 4. Widowconsists simply in tying a knot in the clothes of the couple; marriage in Ahmadābād all they need do is to sit on the ground while the bridegroom's father knocks their heads together." Divorce is allowed for a wife's misconduct, and if she marries her fellow delinquent he must repay to the husband the expenses incurred by him on his wedding. Otherwise the caste committee may inflict a fine of Rs. 100 on him and put him out of caste for twelve years in default of payment, and order one side of his moustache to be shaved. In Gujarāt

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