Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 3 of 7

by Edgar Thurston

Willing sacrifice to be,

Soon in Thadi’s meadows green,

Thou shalt brouse eternally.

After the Khonds had been chanting this sacrificial hymn for some time, the buffalo was untied from the carved post, and led, with singing, dancing and shouting, and with the noise of many musical instruments, to a sacred grove a few hundred yards off, and there tied to a stake. As soon as it had been firmly tied, the Khonds threw off all their superfluous clothing to the large crowd of womankind waiting near, and stood round the animal, each man with his hand uplifted, and holding a sharp knife ready to strike at a moment’s notice, as soon as the priest or Janni had given the word of command. The Janni, who did not differ outwardly from the others, now gave the buffalo a slight tap on the head with a small axe. An indescribable scene followed. The Khonds in a body fell on the animal, and, in an amazingly short time, literally tore the living victim to shreds with their knives, leaving nothing but the head, bones, and stomach. Death must, mercifully, have been almost instantaneous. Every particle of flesh and skin had been stripped off during the few minutes they fought and struggled over the buffalo, eagerly grasping for every atom of flesh. As soon as a man had secured a piece of flesh, he rushed away with the gory mass, as fast as he could, to his fields, to bury it therein according to ancient custom, before the sun had set. As some of them had to do good distances to effect this, it was imperative that they should run very fast. A curious scene now took place, for which we could obtain no explanation. As the men ran, all the women flung after them clods of earth, some of them taking very good effect. The sacred grove was cleared of people, save a few that guarded the remnants left of the buffalo, which were taken, and burnt with ceremony at the foot of the stake.”

I pass on to the subject of infanticide among the Kondhs. It is stated, in the Manual of the Vizagapatam district, that female infanticide used to be very common all over the Jeypore country, and the Rājah is said to have made money out of it in one large tāluk (division). The custom was to consult the Dāsari (priest) when a child was born as to its fate. If it was to be killed, the parents had to pay the Amīn of the tāluk a fee for the privilege of killing it; and the Amīn used to pay the Rājah three hundred rupees a year for renting the privilege of giving the license and pocketing the fees. The practice of female infanticide was formerly very prevalent among the Kondhs of Ganjam, and, in 1841, Lieutenant Macpherson was deputed to carry into effect the measures which had been proposed by Lord Elphinstone for the suppression of the Meriah sacrifices and infanticide. The custom was ascribed to various beliefs, viz., (1) that it was an injunction by god, as one woman made the whole world suffer; (2) that it conduces to male offspring; (3) that woman, being a mischief-maker, is better out of the world than in it; (4) that the difficulty, owing to poverty, in providing marriage portions was an objection to rearing females. From Macpherson’s well known report[170] the following extracts are taken. “The portion of the Khond country, in which the practice of female infanticide is known to prevail, is roughly estimated at 2,400 square miles, its population at 60,000, and the number of infants destroyed annually at 1,200 to 1,500. The tribes (who practice infanticide) belong to the division of the Khond people which does not offer human sacrifices. The usage of infanticide has existed amongst them from time immemorial. It owes its origin and its maintenance partly to religious opinions, partly to ideas from which certain very important features of Khond manners arise. The Khonds believe that the supreme deity, the sun god, created all things good; that the earth goddess introduced evil into the world; and that these two powers have since conflicted. The non-sacrificing tribes make the supreme deity the great object of their adoration, neglecting the earth goddess. The sacrificing tribes, on the other hand, believe the propitiation of the latter power to be the most necessary worship. Now the tribes which practice female infanticide hold that the sun god, in contemplating the deplorable effects produced by the creation of feminine nature, charged men to bring up only as many females as they could restrain from producing evil to society. This is the first idea upon which the usage is founded. Again, the Khonds believe that souls almost invariably return to animate human forms in the families in which they have been first born and received. But the reception of the soul of an infant into a family is completed only on the performance of the ceremony of naming upon the seventh day after its birth. The death of a female infant, therefore, before that ceremonial of reception, is believed to exclude its soul from the circle of family spirits, diminishing by one the chance of future female births in the family. And, as the first aspiration of every Khond is to have male children, this belief is a powerful incentive to infanticide.” Macpherson, during his campaign, came across many villages of about a hundred houses, in which there was not a single female child. In like manner, in 1855, Captain Frye found many Baro Bori Khond villages without a single female child in them.

In savage societies, it has been said, sexual unions were generally effected by the violent capture of the woman. By degrees these captures have become friendly ones, and have ended in a peaceful exogamy, retaining the ancient custom only in the ceremonial form. Whereof an excellent example is afforded by the Kondhs, concerning whom the author of the Ganjam Manual writes as follows. “The parents arrange the marriages of their children. The bride is looked upon as a commercial speculation, and is paid for in gontis. A gonti is one of anything, such as a buffalo, a pig, or a brass pot; for instance, a hundred gontis might consist of ten bullocks, ten buffaloes, ten sacks of corn, ten sets of brass, twenty sheep, ten pigs, and thirty fowls. The usual price, however, paid by the bridegroom’s father for the bride, is twenty or thirty gontis. A Khond finds his wife from among the women of any mutāh (village) than his own. On the day fixed for the bride being taken home to her husband’s house, the pieces of broom in her ears are removed, and are replaced by brass rings. The bride is covered over with a red blanket, and carried astride on her uncle’s back towards the husband’s village, accompanied by the young women of her own village. Music is played, and in the rear are carried brass playthings, such as horses, etc., for the bridegroom, and cloths and brass pins as presents for the bridegroom from the bride’s father. On the road, at the village boundary, the procession is met by the bridegroom and the young men of his village, with their heads and bodies wrapped up in blankets and cloths. Each is armed with a bundle of long thin bamboo sticks. The young women of the bride’s village at once attack the bridegroom’s party with sticks, stones, and clods of earth, which the young men ward off with the bamboo sticks. A running fight is in this manner kept up until the village is reached, when the stone-throwing invariably ceases, and the bridegroom’s uncle, snatching up the bride, carries her off to her husband’s house. This fighting is by no means child’s play, and the men are sometimes seriously injured. The whole party is then entertained by the bridegroom as lavishly as his means will permit. On the day after the bride’s arrival, a buffalo and a pig are slaughtered and eaten, and, upon the bride’s attendants returning home on the evening of the second day, a male and female buffalo, or some less valuable present, is given to them. On the third day, all the Khonds of the village have a grand dance or tamāsha (festivity), and on the fourth day there is another grand assembly at the house of the bridegroom. The bride and bridegroom are then made to sit down on a cot, and the bridegroom’s brother, pointing upwards to the roof of the house, says: “As long as this girl stays with us, may her children be as men and tigers; but, if she goes astray, may her children be as snakes and monkeys, and die and be destroyed!” In his report upon the Kondhs (1842), Macpherson tells us that “they hold a feast at the bride’s house. Far into the night the principals in the scene are raised by an uncle of each upon his shoulders, and borne through the dance. The burdens are suddenly exchanged, and the uncle of the youth disappears with the bride. The assembly divides itself into two parties. The friends of the bride endeavour to arrest, those of the bridegroom to cover her flight, and men, women, and children mingle in mock conflict. I saw a man bearing away upon his back something enveloped in an ample covering of scarlet cloth. He was surrounded by twenty or thirty young fellows, and by them protected from the desperate attacks made upon him by a party of young women. The man was just married, and the burden was his blooming bride, whom he was conveying to his own village. Her youthful friends were, according to custom, seeking to regain possession of her, and hurled stones and bamboos at the head of the devoted bridegroom, until he reached the confines of his own village. Then the tables were turned, and the bride was fairly won; and off her young friends scampered, screaming and laughing, but not relaxing their speed till they reached their own village.” Among the Kondhs of Gumsūr, the friends and relations of the bride and bridegroom collect at an appointed spot. The people of the female convoy call out to the others to come and take the bride, and then a mock fight with stones and thorny brambles is begun by the female convoy against the parties composing the other one. In the midst of the tumult the assaulted party takes possession of the bride, and all the furniture brought with her, and carry all off together.[171] According to another account, the bride, as soon as she enters the bridegroom’s house, has two enormous bracelets, or rather handcuffs of brass, each weighing from twenty to thirty pounds, attached to each wrist. The unfortunate girl has to sit with her two wrists resting on her shoulders, so as to support these enormous weights. This is to prevent her from running away to her old home. On the third day the bangles are removed, as it is supposed that by then the girl has become reconciled to her fate. These marriage bangles are made on the hills, and are curiously carved in fluted and zigzag lines, and kept as heirlooms in the family, to be used at the next marriage in the house. According to a still more recent account of marriage among the Kondhs[172] an old woman suddenly rushes forward, seizes the bride, flings her on her back, and carries her off. A man comes to the front, catches the groom, and places him astride on his shoulder. The human horses neigh and prance about like the live quadruped, and finally rush away to the outskirts of the village. This is a signal for the bride’s girl friends to chase the couple, and pelt them with clods of earth, stones, mud, cowdung, and rice. When the mock assault is at an end, the older people come up, and all accompany the bridal pair to the groom’s village. A correspondent informs me that he once saw a Kondh bride going to her new home, riding on her uncle’s shoulders, and wrapped in a red blanket. She was followed by a bevy of girls and relations, and preceded by drums and horns. He was told that the uncle had to carry her the whole way, and that, if he had to put her down, a fine of a buffalo was inflicted, the animal being killed and eaten. It is recorded that a European magistrate once mistook a Kondh marriage for a riot, but, on enquiry, discovered his mistake.

Reference has been made above to certain brass playthings, which are carried in the bridal procession. The figures include peacocks, chamæleons, cobras, crabs, horses, deer, tigers, cocks, elephants, human beings, musicians, etc. They are cast by the cire perdue process. The core of the figure is roughly shaped in clay, according to the usual practice, but, instead of laying on the wax in an even thickness, thin wax threads are first made, and arranged over the core so as to form a network, or placed in parallel lines or diagonally, according as the form of the figure or fancy of the workman dictates. The head, arms, and feet are modelled in the ordinary way. The wax threads are made by means of a bamboo tube, into the end of which a moveable brass plate is fitted. The wax, being made sufficiently soft by heat, is pressed through the perforation at the end of the tube, and comes out in the form of long threads, which must be used by the workmen before they become hard and brittle. The chief place where these figures are made is Belugunta, near Russellkonda in Ganjam. It is noted by Mr. J. A. R. Stevenson[173] that the Kondhs of Gumsūr, to represent their deities Jara Pennu, the Linga Dēvata, or Petri Dēvata, keep in their houses brass figures of elephants, peacocks, dolls, fishes, etc. If affliction happens to any one belonging to the household, or if the country skin eruption breaks out on any of them, they put rice into milk, and, mixing turmeric with it, sprinkle the mixture on the figures, and, killing fowls and sheep, cause worship to be made by the Jāni, and, making bāji, eat.

At a marriage among the Kondhs of Baliguda, after the heads of the bride and bridegroom have been brought together, an arrow is discharged from a bow by the younger brother of the bridegroom into the grass roof of the hut. At the betrothal ceremony of some Kondhs, a buffalo and pig are killed, and some of the viscera eaten. Various parts are distributed according to an abiding rule, viz., the head to the bridegroom’s maternal uncle, the flesh of the sides to his sisters, and of the back among other relations and friends. Some Kondh boys of ten or twelve years of age are said to be married to girls of fifteen or sixteen. At Shubernagiri, in the Ganjam Māliahs, are two trysting trees, consisting of a jāk (Artocarpus integrifolia) and mango growing close together. The custom was for a Kondh, who was unable to pay the marriage fees to the Pātro (headman), to meet his love here by night and plight his troth, and then for the two to retire into the jungle for three days and nights before returning to the village. Afterwards, they were considered to be man and wife.

It is noted by Mr. Friend-Pereira[174] that, at the ceremonial for settling the preliminaries of a Kondh marriage, a knotted string is put into the hands of the sēridāhpa gātāru (searchers for the bride), and a similar string is kept by the girl’s people. The reckoning of the date of the betrothal ceremony is kept by undoing a knot in the string every morning.

Some years ago, a young Kondh was betrothed to the daughter of another Kondh, and, after a few years, managed to pay up the necessary number of gifts. He then applied to the girl’s father to name the day for the marriage. Before the wedding took place, however, a Pāno went to the girl’s father, and said that she was his daughter (she had been born before her parents were married), and that he was the man to whom the gifts should have been paid. The case was referred to a council meeting, which decided in favour of the Pāno.