13. Social customs
The Panwār women wear their clothes tied in the Hindustāni and not in the Marātha fashion. They are tattooed on the legs, hands and face, the face being usually decorated with single dots which are supposed to enhance its beauty, much after the same fashion as patches in England. Padmākar, the Saugor poet, Mr. Hīra Lāl remarks, compared the dot on a woman’s chin to a black bee buried in a half-ripe mango. The women, Mr. Low says, are addicted to dances, plays and charades, the first being especially graceful performances. They are skilful with their fingers and make pretty grass mats and screens for the house, and are also very good cooks and appreciate variety in food. The Panwārs do not eat off the ground, but place their dishes on little iron stands, sitting themselves on low wooden stools. The housewife is a very important person, and the husband will not give anything to eat or drink out of the house without her concurrence. Mr. Low writes on the character and abilities of the Panwārs as follows: “The Panwār is to Bālāghāt what the Kunbi is to Berār or the Gūjar to Hoshangābād, but at the same time he is less entirely attached to the soil and its cultivation, and much more intelligent and cosmopolitan than either. One of the most intelligent officials in the Agricultural Department is a Panwār, and several members of the caste have made large sums as forest and railway contractors in this District; Panwār shikāris are also not uncommon. They are generally averse to sedentary occupations, and though quite ready to avail themselves of the advantages of primary education, they do not, as a rule, care to carry their studies to a point that would ensure their admission to the higher ranks of Government service. Very few of them are to be found as patwāris, constables or peons. They are a handsome race, with intelligent faces, unusually fair, with high foreheads, and often grey eyes. They are not, as a rule, above middle height, but they are active and hard-working and by no means deficient in courage and animal spirits, or a sense of humour. They are clannish in the extreme, and to elucidate a criminal case in which no one but Panwārs are concerned, and in a Panwār village, is usually a harder task than the average local police officer can tackle. At times they are apt to affect, in conversation with Government officials, a whining and unpleasant tone, especially when pleading their claim to some concession or other; and they are by no means lacking in astuteness and are good hands at a bargain. But they are a pleasant, intelligent and plucky race, not easily cast down by misfortune and always ready to attempt new enterprises in almost any direction save those indicated by the Agricultural Department.
“In the art of rice cultivation they are past masters. They are skilled tank-builders, though perhaps hardly equal to the Kohlis of Chānda. But they excel especially in the mending and levelling of their fields, in neat transplantation, and in the choice and adaptation of the different varieties of rice to land of varying qualities. They are by no means specially efficient as labourers, though they and their wives do their fair share of field work; but they are well able to control the labour of others, especially of aborigines, through whom most of their tank and other works are executed.”
[1] With the exception of the historical notice, this article is principally based on a paper by Mr. Muhammad Yusuf, reader to Mr. C.E. Low, Deputy Commissioner of Bālāghāt.
[2] Tod’s Rājasthān, ii. p. 407.
[3] Foreign elements in the Hindu population, Ind. Ant. (January 1911), vol. xl.
[4] Early History of India (Oxford, Clarendon Press), 3rd ed., p. 303.
[5] Ibidem, 2nd ed., p. 288.
[6] Ibidem, p. 316.
[7] Early History of India (Oxford, Clarendon Press), 3rd ed., p. 319.
[8] Garret’s Classical Dictionary of Hinduism, s.v. Jamadagni and Rāma.
[9] The following extract is taken from Mr. V.A. Smith’s Early History of India, 3rd ed. pp. 395, 396. The passage has been somewhat abridged in reproduction.
[10] Malcolm, i. p. 26.
[11] Rājasthān, ii. p. 215.
[12] A similar instance in Europe is related by Colonel Tod, concerning the origin of the Madrid Restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne at Paris. After Francis I had been captured by the Spaniards he was allowed to return to his capital, on pledging his parole that he would go back to Madrid. But the delights of liberty and Paris were too much for honour; and while he wavered a hint was thrown out similar to that of destroying the clay city. A mock Madrid arose in the Bois de Boulogne, to which Francis retired. (Rājasthān, ii. p. 428.)
[13] Rājasthān, ii. pp. 264, 265.
[14] Tribes and Castes, art. Panwār.
[15] Memoir of Central India, i. 96.
[16] Tribes and Castes, art. Panwār.
[17] Blockmann, i. 252, quoted by Crooke.
[18] Ibbetson, P.C.R., para. 448.
[19] His name, Lakshma Deva, is given in a stone inscription dated A.D. 1104–1105.
[20] The inscription is said to be in one of the temples in Winj Bāsini, near Bhāndak, in the Devanāgri character in Marāthi, and to run as follows: “Consecration of Jagnārāyan (the serpent of the world). Dajíanashnaku, the son of Chogneka, he it was who consecrated the god. The Panwār, the ruler of Dhār, was the third repairer of the statue. The image was carved by Gopināth Pandit, inhabitant of Lonār Mehkar. Let this shrine be the pride of all the citizens, and let this religious act be notified to the chief and other officers.”
[21] A few Panwār Rājpūts are found in the Saugor District, but they are quite distinct from those of the Marātha country, and marry with the Bundelas. They are mentioned in the article on that clan.
[22] March.
[23] Rice boiled with milk and sugar.
[24] Village headman.
[25] Patwāri or village accountant.
[26] Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 59.
[27] Diospyros tomentosa.
[28] Gamble, Manual of Indian Timbers, p. 461.
[29] Bālāghāt District Gazetteer.
[30] P. 62, quoting from Bringand, Les Karens de la Birmanie, Les Missions Catholiques, xx. (1888), p. 208.