3. Religion.

relatives refuse to wash the feet of these women and th provokes quarrels. To meet such cases the new rule ta been introduced. At the wedding the priest sits on the no of the house facing the west, and the bride and bridegroʊ stand below with a curtain between them. As the sun's half set he claps his hands and the bridegroom takes th clasped hands of the bride within his own, the curtain beir withdrawn. The bridegroom ties round the bride's neck yellow thread of seven strands, and when this is done st is married. Next morning a black bead necklace is substituted for the thread. The expenses of the bridegrooms party are about Rs. 50, and of the bride's about Rs. 30 The remaining procedure follows the customary usage the Maratha Districts. Widows are permitted to marry again, but must not take a second husband from the sept to which the first belonged. A considerable price is paid for a widow, and it is often more expensive to marry one than a girl. A Brāhman and the mālguzār (village proprietor) should be present at the ceremony. If a bachelor marries a widow he must first go through the ceremony with a silver ring, and if the ring is subsequently lost or broken, its funeral rites must be performed. allowed in the presence of the caste panchayat at the instance of either party for sufficient reason, as the misconduct or bad temper of the wife or the impotency of the

husband.

Divorce is

Mahadeo is the special deity of the Dhangars, and they also observe the ordinary Hindu festivals. At Diwāli they worship their goats by dyeing their horns and touching their feet. One Bahram of Nachangaon near Pulgaon is the tutelary deity of the Wardha Dhangars and the protector of their flocks. On the last day of the month of Mãgh they perform a special ceremony called the Deo Pūja. A Dhimar acts as priest to the caste on this occasion and fashions some figures of idols out of rice to which vermilion and flowers are offered. He then distributes the grains of rice to the Dhangars who are present, pronouncing a benediction. The Dhimar receives his food and a present, and it is essential that the act of worship should be performed by one of this caste. In their houses they have Kul-Devi

of

and Khandoba the Maratha hero, who are the family deities. But in large families they are kept only in the house of the eldest brother. Kul-Devi or the goddess of the family is worshipped at weddings, and a goat is offered to her in the : month of Chait (March). The head is buried beneath her shrine inside the house and the body is consumed by members of the family only. Khandoba is worshipped on Sundays and they identify him with the sun. Vithoba, a form of Vishnu, is revered on Wednesdays, and Bālāji, the younger brother of Rāma, on Fridays. Many families also make a representation of some deceased bachelor relative, which they call Munjia, and of some married woman who is known as Mairni or Sasin, and worship them daily.

social

The Dhangars burn their dead unless they are too poor 4. Birth, to purchase wood for fuel, in which case burial is resorted death and to. Unmarried children and persons dying from smallpox, status. leprosy, cholera and snake-bite are also buried. At the pyre the widow breaks her bangles and throws her glass beads on to her husband's body. On returning from the burning ghat the funeral party drink liquor. Some ganja, tobacco and anything else which the deceased may have been fond of during his life are left near the grave on the first day. Mourning is observed during ten days on the death of an adult and for three days for a child. Children are usually named on the twelfth day after birth, the wellto-do employing a Brahman for the purpose. On this day the child must not see a lamp, as it is feared that if he should do so he will afterwards have a squint. Only one name is given as a rule, but subsequently when the child comes to be married, if the Brahman finds that its name does not make the marriage auspicious, he substitutes another and the child is afterwards known by this new name. The caste employ Brahmans for ceremonies at birth and marriage. They eat flesh including fowls and wild pig, and drink liquor, but abstain from other unclean food. They will take food from a Kunbi, Phūlmāli or a Sunar, and water from any of the good cultivating castes. A Kunbi will take water from them. The women of the caste wear bracelets of lead or brass on the right wrist and glass bangles on the left. Permanent or temporary excommunication from caste

5. Occupa

tion.

1. Original and classical records.

is imposed for the usual offences, and among those vis with the minor penalty are selling shoes, touching the carca of a dog or cat, and killing a cow or buffalo, or allowi one to die with a rope round its neck. No food is cook for five weeks in a house in which a cat has died. Th social standing of the caste is low.

The traditional occupation of the Dhangars is to ter sheep and goats, and they also sell goats' milk, make blanke: from the wool of sheep, and sometimes breed and s stock for slaughter. They generally live near tracts of wast: land where grazing is available. Sheep are kept in ope and goats in roofed folds. Like English shepherds the carry sticks or staffs and have dogs to assist in driving the flocks, and they sometimes hunt hares with their dog Their dress consists frequently only of a loin-cloth and a blanket, and having to bear exposure to all weathers they are naturally strong and hardy. In appearance they are dark and of medium size. They eat three times a day and bathe in the evening on returning from work though their ablutions are sometimes omitted in the cold weather.

Dhanuk.-A low caste of agriculturists found principally in the Narsinghpur District, which contained three-fourths of the total of nearly 7000 persons returned in 1911. The headquarters of the caste are in the United Provinces, which contains more than a lakh of Dhānuks. The name is derived from the Sanskrit dhanuska, an archer, and the caste is an ancient one, its origin as given in the Padma Purāna, quoted by Sir Henry Elliot, being from a Chamār father and a Chandal or sweeper mother. Another pedigree makes the mother a Chamār and the father an outcaste Ahir. Such statements, Sir H. Risley remarks in commenting on this genealogy,' serve to indicate in a general way the social rank held by the Dhanuks at the time when it was first thought necessary to enrol them among the mixed castes. Dr. Buchanan 2 says that the Dhanuks were in former times the militia of the country. He states that all the Dhanuks

1 Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Dhanuk.

2 Eastern India, i. 166, as quoted in Crooke's Tribes and Castes.

II

DHANUK

485

were at one time probably slaves and many were recruited to fill up the military ranks-a method of security which had long been prevalent in Asia, the armies of the Parthians - having been composed entirely of slaves. A great many Dhanuks, at the time when Buchanan wrote, were still slaves, but some annually procured their liberty by the inability of their masters to maintain them and their unwillingness to sell their fellow-creatures. It may be concluded, therefore, that the Dhanuks were a body of servile soldiery, recruited as was often the case from the subject Dravidian tribes ; following the all-powerful tendency of Hindu society they became a caste, and owing to the comparatively respectable nature of their occupation obtained a rise in social position from the outcaste status of the subject Dravidians to the somewhat higher group of castes who were not unclean but from whom a Brāhman would not accept water. They did not advance so far as the Khandaits, another caste formed from military service, who were also, Sir H. Risley shows, originally recruited from a subject tribe, probably because the position of the Dhanuks was always more subordinate and no appreciable number of them came to be officers or leaders. The very debased origin of the caste already mentioned as given in the Padma Purāna may be supposed as in other cases to be an attempt on the part of the priestly chronicler to repress what he considered to be unfounded claims to a rise in rank. But the Dhanuks, not less than the other soldier castes, have advanced a pretension to be Kshatriyas, those of Narsinghpur sometimes calling themselves Dhankarai Rājpūts, though this claim is of course in their case a pure absurdity. It is not necessary to suppose that the Dhanuks of the Central Provinces are the lineal descendants of the caste whose genealogy is given in the Purānas; they may be a much more recent offshoot from a main caste, formed in a precisely similar manner from military service.1 Mr. Crooke 2 surmises that they belonged to the large impure caste of Basors or basket-makers, who took to bow-making and thence to archery; and some connection is traceable between the

1 Cf. the two perfectly distinct groups of Paiks or foot-soldiers found in Jubbulpore and the Uriya country.

2 Tribes and Castes of the N.W.P. and Oudh, art. Basor.

3. Social

rank and customs.

2. Marriage.

Dhānuks and Basors in Narsinghpur. Such a separation probably have occurred in comparatively recent times, ina much as some recollection of it still remains. The fact th Lodhis are the only caste besides Brahmans from whom the Dhanuks of Narsinghpur will take food cooked without wat may indicate that they formed the militia of Lodhi chieftains in the Nerbudda valley, a hypothesis which is highly probab on general grounds.

In the Central Provinces the Dhanuks have no subcaste The names of their gotras or family groups, though they themselves cannot explain them, are apparently territorial as Mãragaiyān from Maragaon, Benaikawar from Benaika village, Pangarya from Panagar, Binjharia from Bindhya or Vindhya, Barodhaya from Barodha village, and so on. Marriages within the same gotra and between first cousins are prohibited, and child-marriage is usual. The father of the boy always takes the initiative in arranging a match, and if a man wants to find a husband for his daughter he must ask the assistance of his relatives to obtain a proposal, as it would be derogatory to move in the matter himself. The contract for marriages is made at the boy's house and is not inviolable. Before the departure of the bridegroom for the bride's village, he stands at the entrance of the marriageshed, and his mother comes up and places her breast to his mouth and throws rice balls and ashes over him. The former action signifies the termination of his boyhood, while the latter is meant to protect him on his important journey. The bridegroom in walking away treads on a saucer in which a little rice is placed. Widow - marriage and divorce are permitted.

A few members of the caste are tenants and the bulk of them farmservants and field-labourers. They also act as

village watchmen. The Dhanuks eat flesh and fish, but not fowls, beef or pork, and they abstain from liquor. They will take food cooked without water from a Brāhman and a Lodhi, but not from a Rājpūt; but in Nimār the status of the caste is distinctly lower, and they eat pig's flesh and the leavings of Brahmans and Rājpūts. The mixed nature of

1 The following particulars are from a paper by Kanhyā Lāl, a clerk in the

Gazetteer office belonging to the Educational Department.