3. Internal structure: Totemism.
The tribe has two subdivisions of a territorial nature, Laria or Chhattīsgarhi, and Uriya. The Uriya Bhainas will accept food cooked without water from the Sawaras or Saonrs, and these also from them; so that they have probably intermarried. Two other subdivisions recorded are the Jhalyāra and Ghantyāra or Ghatyāra; the former being so called because they live in jhālas or leaf huts in the forest, and the latter, it is said, because they tie a ghanta or bell to their doors. This, however, seems very improbable. Another theory is that the word is derived from ghāt, a slope or descent, and refers to a method which the tribe have of tattooing themselves with a pattern of lines known as ghāt. Or it is said to mean a low or despised section. The Jhalyāra and Ghatyāra divisions comprise the less civilised portion of the tribe, who still live in the forests; and they are looked down on by the Uriya and Laria sections, who belong to the open country. The exogamous divisions of the tribe show clearly enough that the Bhainas, like other subject races, have quite failed to preserve any purity of blood. Among the names of their gots or septs are Dhobia (a washerman), Ahera (cowherd), Gond, Mallin (gardener), Panika (from a Panka or Ganda) and others. The members of such septs pay respect to any man belonging to the caste after which they are named and avoid picking a quarrel with him. They also worship the family gods of this caste. The tribe have also a number of totem septs, named after animals or plants. Such are Nāg the cobra, Bāgh the tiger, Chitwa the leopard, Gidha the vulture, Besra the hawk, Bendra the monkey, Kok or Lodha the wild dog, Bataria the quail, Durgachhia the black ant, and so on. Members of a sept will not injure the animal after which it is named, and if they see the corpse of the animal or hear of its death, they throw away an earthen cooking-pot and bathe and shave themselves as for one of the family. Members of the Baghchhāl or tiger sept will, however, join in a beat for tiger though they are reluctant to do so. At weddings the Bhainas have a ceremony known as the gotra worship. The bride’s father makes an image in clay of the bird or animal of the groom’s sept and places it beside the marriage-post. The bridegroom worships the image, lighting a sacrificial fire before it, and offers to it the vermilion which he afterwards smears upon the forehead of the bride. At the bridegroom’s house a similar image is made of the bride’s totem, and on returning there after the wedding she worships this. Women are often tattooed with representations of their totem animal, and men swear by it as their most sacred oath. A similar respect is paid to the inanimate objects after which certain septs are named. Thus members of the Gawad or cowdung sept will not burn cowdung cakes for fuel; and those of the Mircha sept do not use chillies. One sept is named after the sun, and when an eclipse occurs these perform the same formal rites of mourning as the others do on the death of their totem animal. Some of the groups have two divisions, male and female, which practically rank as separate septs. Instances of these are the Nāgbans Andura and the Nāgbans Mai or male and female cobra septs; the Karsayāl Singhara and Karsayāl Mundi or stag and doe deer septs; and the Baghchhāl Andura and Baghchhāl Mai or tiger and tigress septs. These may simply be instances of subdivisions arising owing to the boundaries of the sept having become too large for convenience.