3. Tribal subdivisions
The Bundelkhand Savars have been so long separated from the others that they have sometimes forgotten their identity and consider themselves as a subtribe of Gonds, though the better informed repudiate this. They may be regarded as a separate endogamous group. The eastern branch have two main divisions called Laria and Uriya, or those belonging to Chhattīsgarh and Sambalpur respectively. A third division known as the Kālāpithia or ‘Black Backs’ are found in Orissa, and are employed to drag the car of Jagannāth. These on account of their sacred occupation consider themselves superior to the others, abstain from fowls and liquor, and sometimes wear the sacred thread. The Larias are the lowest subdivision. Marriage is regulated by exogamous septs or bargas. The northern Savars say that they have 52 of these, 52 being a number frequently adopted to express the highest possible magnitude, as if no more could be imagined. The Uriya Savars say they have 80 bargas. Besides the prohibition of marriage within the same barga, the union of first cousins is sometimes forbidden. Among the Uriya Savars each barga has the two further divisions of Joria and Khuntia, the Jorias being those who bury or burn their dead near a jor or brook, and the Khuntias those who bury or burn them near a khunt or old tree. Jorias and Khuntias of the same barga cannot intermarry, but in the case of some other subdivisions of the barga, as between those who eat rice at one festival in the year and those eating it at two, marriage is allowed between members of the two subdivisions, thus splitting the exogamous group into two. The names of the bargas are usually totemistic, and the following are some examples: Badaiya, the carpenter bird; Bāgh, the tiger; Bagula, the heron; Bahra, a cook; Bhatia, a brinjal or egg-plant; Bīsi, the scorpion; Basantia, the trunk of the cotton tree; Hathia, an elephant; Jancher, a tree (this barga is divided into Bada and Kachcha, the Bada worshipping the tree and the Kachcha a branch of it, and marriage between the two subdivisions is allowed); Jharia (this barga keeps a lock of a child’s hair unshaved for four or five years after its birth); Juadi, a gambler; Karsa, a deer; Khairaiya, the khair or catechu tree; Lodhi, born from the caste of that name (in Saugor); Markām, the name of a Gond sept; Rājhans, a swan; Suriya Bansia, from the sun (members of this barga feed the caste-fellows on the occasion of a solar eclipse and throw away their earthen pots); Silgainya from sil, a slate; and Tiparia from tipari, a basket (these two septs are divided into Kachcha and Pakka groups which can marry with each other); Sona, gold (a member of this sept does not wear gold ornaments until he has given a feast and a caste-fellow has placed one on his person).