Mallāh
Mallāh, Malha.[1]—A small caste of boatmen and fishermen in the Jubbulpore and Narsinghpur Districts, which numbered about 5000 persons in 1911. It is scarcely correct to designate the Mallāhs as a distinct caste, as in both these Districts it appears from inquiry that the term is synonymous with Kewat. Apparently, however, the Mallāhs do form a separate endogamous group, and owing to many of them having adopted the profession of growing hemp, a crop which respectable Hindu castes usually refuse to cultivate, it is probable that they would not be allowed to intermarry with the Kewats of other Districts. In the United Provinces Mr. Crooke states that the Mallāhs, though, as their Arabic name indicates, of recent origin, have matured into a definite social group, including a number of endogamous tribes. The term Mallāh has nothing to do with the Mulla or Muhammadan priest among the frontier tribes, but comes from an Arabic word meaning ‘to be salt,’ or, according to another derivation, ‘to move the wings as a bird.’[2] The Mallāhs of the Central Provinces are also, in spite of their Arabic name, a purely Hindu caste. In Narsinghpur they say that their original ancestor was one Bali or Balirām, who was a boatman and was so strong that he could carry his boat to the river and back under his armpit. On one occasion he ferried Rāma across the Ganges in Benāres, and it is said that Rāma gave him a horse to show his gratitude; but Balirām was so ignorant that he placed the bridle on the horse’s tail instead of the head. And from this act of Balirām’s arose the custom of having the rudder of a boat at the stern instead of at the bow. The Mallāhs in the Central Provinces appear from their family names to be immigrants from Bundelkhand. Their customs resemble those of lower-class Hindus. Girls are usually married under the age of twelve years, and the remarriage of widows is permitted, while divorce may be effected in the presence of the panchāyat or caste committee by the husband and wife breaking a straw between them. They are scantily clothed and are generally poor. A proverb about them says:
Jahān bethen Malao
Tahan lage alao,
or, ‘Where Mallāhs sit, there is always a fire.’ This refers to their custom of kindling fires on the river-bank to protect themselves from cold. In Narsinghpur the Mallāhs have found a profitable opening in the cultivation of hemp, a crop which other Hindu castes until recently tabooed on account probably of the dirty nature of the process of cleaning out the fibre and the pollution necessarily caused to the water-supply. They sow and cut hemp on Sundays and Wednesdays, which are regarded as auspicious days. They also grow melons, and will not enter a melon-field with their shoes on or allow a woman during her periodical impurity to approach it. The Mallāhs are poor and illiterate, but rank with Dhīmars and Kewats, and Brāhmans will take water from their hands.
[1] This article is based on papers by Mr. Shyāmācharan, B.A., B.L., Pleader, Narsinghpur, and Pyāre Lāl Misra, Ethnographic clerk.
[2] Crooke’s Tribes and Castes of the N. W. P. and Oudh, art. Mallāh.