1. Origin and traditions.
Dhanwār, Dhanuhār.[1]—A primitive tribe living in the wild hilly country of the Bilāspur zamīndāri estates, adjoining Chota Nāgpur. They numbered only 19,000 persons in 1911. The name Dhanuhār means a bowman, and the bulk of the tribe have until recently been accustomed to obtain their livelihood by hunting with bow and arrows. The name is thus merely a functional term and is analogous to those of Dhāngar, or labourer, and Kisān, or cultivator, which are applied to the Oraons, and perhaps Halba or farmservant, by which another tribe is known. The Dhanwārs are almost certainly not connected with the Dhānuks of northern India, though the names have the same meaning. They are probably an offshoot of either the Gond or the Kawar tribe or a mixture of both. Their own legend of their origin is nearly the same as that of the Gonds, while the bulk of their sept or family names are identical with those of the Kawars. Like the Kawars, the Dhanwārs have no language of their own and speak a corrupt form of Chhattīsgarhi Hindi. Mr. Jeorākhan Lāl writes of them:—“The word Dhanuhār is a corrupt form of Dhanusdhār or a holder of a bow. The bow consists of a cleft piece of bamboo and the arrow is made of wood of the dhāman tree.[2] The pointed end is furnished with a piece or a nail of iron called phani, while to the other end are attached feathers of the vulture or peacock with a string of tasar silk. Dhanuhār boys learn the use of the bow at five years of age, and kill birds with it when they are seven or eight years old. At their marriage ceremony the bridegroom carries an arrow with him in place of a dagger as among the Hindus, and each household has a bow which is worshipped at every festival.” According to their own legend the ancestors of the Dhanuhārs were two babies whom a tigress unearthed from the ground when scratching a hole in her den, and brought up with her own young. They were named Nāga Lodha and Nāgi Lodhi, Nāga meaning naked and Lodha being the Chhattīsgarhi word for a wild dog. Growing up they lived for some time as brother and sister, until the deity enjoined them to marry. But they had no children until Nāga Lodha, in obedience to the god’s instructions, gave his wife the fruit of eleven trees to eat. From these she had eleven sons at a birth, and as she observed a fortnight’s impurity for each of them the total period was five and a half months. In memory of this, Dhanuhār women still remain impure for five months after delivery, and do not worship the gods for that period. Afterwards the couple had a twelfth son, who was born with a bow and arrows in his hand, and is now the ancestral hero of the tribe, being named Karankot. One day in the forest when Karankot was not with them, the eleven brothers came upon a wooden palisade, inside which were many deer and antelope tended by twelve Gaoli (herdsmen) brothers with their twelve sisters. The Lodha brothers attacked the place, but were taken prisoners by the Gaolis and forced to remove dung and other refuse from the enclosure. After a time Karankot went in search of his brothers and, coming to the place, defeated the Gaolis and rescued them and carried off the twelve sisters. The twelve brothers subsequently married the twelve Gaoli girls, Karankot himself being wedded to the youngest and most beautiful, whose name was Maswāsi. From each couple is supposed to be descended one of the tribes who live in this country, as the Binjhwār, Bhumia, Korwa, Mājhi, Kol, Kawar and others, the Dhanuhārs themselves being the progeny of Karankot and Maswāsi. The bones of the animals killed by Karankot were thrown into ditches dug round the village and form the pits of chhui mithi or white clay now existing in this tract.