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

by Edgar Thurston

Of birth ceremonies, the following account is given by Mr. Jayaram Moodaliar. The woman is attended in her confinement by an elderly Kondh midwife, who shampooes her abdomen with castor-oil. The umbilical cord is cut by the mother of the infant. For this purpose, the right thigh of the baby is flexed towards its abdomen, and a piece of cooled charcoal placed on its right knee. The cord is placed on the charcoal, and divided with the sharp edge of an arrow. The placenta is buried close to the house near a wall. After the cord has been severed, the mother daubs the region of the infant’s navel with her saliva, over which she smears castor-oil. She then warms her hands at a fire, and applies them to the infant’s body. [It is stated, in the Ganjam Manual, that the infant is held before a hot fire, and half roasted.] The warming is repeated several times daily for four or five days. When the umbilical cord has sloughed off, a spider is burnt to ashes over a fire, placed in a cocoanut shell, mixed with castor-oil, and applied by means of a fowl’s feather to the navel. The infant’s head is shaved, except over the anterior fontanelle, the hair from which is removed after about a month. Its body is smeared all over daily with castor-oil and turmeric paste until it is a month old. The mother then goes with her baby and husband to her brother’s house, where the infant is presented with a fowl, which is taken home, and eaten by her husband. The appropriation of the fowl varies according to the locality. In some places, the infant’s father, and other relations, except the mother, may eat it, and, in others, both its parents, and relations living in the house, may do so. In still other places, the father, paternal grandfather and grandmother, and paternal uncle, may partake of it.

The naming ceremony among the Kondhs of Gumsūr is thus described by Mr. J. A. R. Stevenson. “Six months after birth, on a fixed day, they make gāduthuva (the ceremony of naming the child). On that day, killing a dog, and procuring liquor, they make bāji. They wash the feet of the child. The Jāni being come, he ties a cord from the haft to the point of a sickle, and they divine by means of it. Having assembled the petrilu (literally ancestors, but here denoting household images or gods), they put rice on the sickle. As the names (of the ancestors or family?) are repeated in order, each time the rice is put on, that name is chosen on the mention of which the sickle moves, and is given to the child. They then drink liquor, and eat bāji. They give rice and flesh to the Jāni.”

Of death ceremonies, the following account is given in the manual of the Ganjam district. “Immediately after death, a cloth is wrapped round the corpse, but no cloths or valuables are removed. A portion of paddy (unhusked rice), and all the cooking utensils of the deceased are given to the village Sitra. [The Sitras manufacture the brass rings and bangles worn by the Kondhs.] The body is then burnt. On the following day, a little rice is cooked, put on a dish, and laid on the spot where the corpse was burnt. An incantation is then pronounced, requesting the spirit of the deceased person to eat the rice and enjoy itself, and not to change itself into a devil or tiger, and come bothering the survivors in the village. Three days after death, the madda ceremony is performed. An effigy of the deceased is prepared of straw, which is stuck up in front of or on the roof of the house, and the relations and friends assemble, lament, and eat at the expense of the people of the deceased’s house. Each person brings a present of some kind or other, and, on his departure on the next day, receives something of slightly higher value. The death of a man in a village requires a purification, which is made by the sacrifice of a buffalo on the seventh day after death. If a man is killed by a tiger, the purification is made by the sacrifice of a pig, the head of which, cut off with a tangi (axe) by a Pāno, is passed between the legs of the men in the village, who stand in a line astraddle. It is a bad omen for him if the head touches any man’s legs. If the Pātro attends a funeral, he gets a fee of a goat for firing his gun, to drive away the dead man’s ghost.” According to Mr. Jayaram Moodaliar, if a person is killed by a tiger, the head of the decapitated pig is placed in a stream, and, as it floats down, it has to pass between the legs of the villagers. If it touches the legs of any of them, it forebodes that he will be killed by a tiger.

In a note on the death ceremonies in Gumsūr, Mr. J. A. R. Stevenson writes as follows. “On life ceasing, they tie a sheep to the foot of the corpse. They carry the clothes, brass eating-dish, brass drinking-vessel, ornaments, grain in store, and the said sheep to the burning-ground. Having burned the body, and gone around about the pile, they leave all those things there, and, beating drums, return home. The garments the Pānos take away. They procure liquor, and drink it. They then go to their respective houses, and eat. On the next day, they kill a she-buffalo, and get together a great quantity of liquor. The whole of the tribe (near and distant relations) being assembled, they make bāji, and eat. They beat drums. If the deceased were of any consequence, dancers come and dance to the sound of the drums, to whom some animal is given, which they take, and go away. Subsequently, on the twelfth day, they carry a hog to the spot where the body was burned, and, after perambulating the site of the pyre, return to their home, where they kill a hog in the place set apart for their household gods, and, procuring liquor, make baji, the members of the tribe eating together. Should a tiger carry off any one, they throw out of doors all the (preserved) flesh belonging to him, and all the people of the village, not excepting children, quit their homes. The Jāni, being come with two rods of the tummeca tree (Acacia arabica), he plants these in the earth, and then, bringing one rod of the condatamara tree (Smilax macrophylla), he places it transversely across the other two. The Jāni, performing some incantation, sprinkles water on them. Beginning with the children, as these and the people pass through the passage so formed, the Jāni sprinkles water on them all. Afterwards, the whole of them go to their houses, without looking behind them.”

In connection with customs observed in the event of death, Mr. Jayaram Moodaliar writes that “if a woman’s husband dies, she removes the beads from her neck, the metal finger rings, ankle and wrist ornaments, and the ornament worn in the lobe of one ear, that worn in the lobe of the other ear being retained. These are thrown on the chest of the corpse, before it is cremated. The widow does not remove the ornaments worn in the helices of the ears, and in the alæ and septum of the nose. When a Khond dies, his body is cremated. The people in the house of the deceased are not allowed to cook their food on that or the next day, but are fed by their relations and friends in the village. On the day after death, rice and a fowl are cooked separately, put in big leaf cups, and placed on the spot where the corpse was burnt. The spirit of the deceased is invited to eat the meal, and asked not to do them any harm. On the third day, the relations bathe, and smear their heads with clay. An effigy of the deceased is made, and stuck up on the roof of the house. The practice of making an image of the deceased obtains among the Goomsūr Khonds, but, in some other places, is considered inauspicious. On the seventh day, a purificatory ceremony is gone through, and a buffalo killed, with which, and the indispensable liquor, the guests are entertained. At a village two miles from Baliguda, a boy, about sixteen years old, died. His gold ear-rings and silver bracelets were not removed, but burnt. His cloths were thrown on the pyre. Rāgi and other grains, paddy, etc., were placed near the funeral pyre, but not in the fire. The food-stuffs, and a buffalo, were divided among the Haddis, who are the servants of the headman (Pātro) of the muttah. They also took the remains of the jewels, recovered from the ashes after cremation.”

It is recorded by Mr. F. Fawcett[175] that “once after death, a propitiatory sacrifice is made of animals of the deceased to the Pidāri Pitta (ancestor) for the sake of the deceased’s spirit, which, after this festive introduction to the shades, must take its chance. A curious ceremony, which I do not remember seeing noted anywhere, is performed the day after death. Some boiled rice and a small fowl are taken to the burning place. The fowl is split down the breast, and placed on the spot; it is afterwards eaten, and the soul is invoked to enter a new-Aborn child.”

The following note on a Kondh funeral dance in the Ganjam Māliahs is from the pen of an eye-witness.[176] “The dead Pātro is, as usual, a hill Uriya, of ancient lineage, no less than that of the great totem of nola bompsa or the ancestral wood-pigeon that laid its eggs in the hollow of a bamboo, from which this family sprang. Various and most interesting are the totems of the Māliahs. In passing, I may mention another curious totem, that of the pea-fowl, two eggs of which a man brought home to his wife, who laid them in an earthen pot, and from them sprang a man-child, the progenitor of a famous family. But to return to the Pātro. Before sunset, mourned by his two wives, the younger and favourite one carrying a young child of light bamboo colour, he had been burnt, without much ceremony, in an open grassy spot, his ashes scattered to the four winds of heaven, and the spot marked by wooden posts driven deep into the soil. Not now would be celebrated the funeral obsequies, but a month hence on the accession of his eldest son, the future Pātro, a fair lad of eighteen years. As the day for the obsequies drew near, an unusual bustle filled the air. Potters from the low country arrived, and hundreds upon hundreds of earthen pots of all sizes and shapes were turned, and piled in great heaps near the village. Huge buffaloes, unconscious of their approaching fate, lay tethered near, or wallowing in bovine luxury in a swamp hard by. Messengers had been sent far and near to all the Pātros, Molikos, and Bissoyis. Even the Kuttiya Khonds were not left out. The auspicious morning at length dawned, when a distinguished company began to arrive, each chief with his followers, and in many cases his wives and little children, all dressed in their best, and bent on enjoying everything to the utmost. I noticed fine stalwart men from Udiagiri on the edge of the ghauts, together with Khonds from more civilised Baliguda, and Khonds from cold and breezy Daringabadi, cheerful in spite of the numbers of their relatives that had found a horrid tomb inside a man-eating tiger that since 1886 (together with another ally lately started) had carried off more than four hundred of their kith and kin. Distinguished amongst even that wild horde for savagery were the Khonds from the Kuttiya country, who live on tops of hills, and whose women are seldom, if ever, seen. These are remarkable for their enormous quantities of frizzly hair tied in huge chignons over the right brow, and decorated with feathers of every hue—the jay, the parrot, the peacock and the white quills of the paddy-bird predominating. Their short, sturdy limbs are hung in every direction with necklaces and curious blue beads and cut agates, said to be dug out of ancient burial places and cromlechs in Central India. Certain it is that almost no inducement will prevail on a Khond to voluntarily part with these precious heirlooms. As each fresh detachment arrived, their first occupation was to go to a neighbouring tank (pond), and, after a wash and decoration of head and hair with either the orthodox feathers, or, prettier still, with wreaths of wild flowers, to repair to the late chief’s house, and, presenting themselves at the door, condole, with much vigour of lungs, with the now less disconsolate widows on their recent loss. This ceremony over, they tendered their allegiance to the young son of the dead Pātro, permitted by Government to take his place, and each man received from him an earthen cooking-pot, and each circle of villages a buffalo. The Khond is a beef eater, but a curious custom prevails in some parts, that a married woman must abstain from the flesh of a cow. These preliminary ceremonies over, the crowd adjourned, with great noise of shouting, blowing of buffalo horns, and beating of drums, to the open grassy spot marked by posts, where the late Pātro had been burned, and where a recently killed buffalo, weltering in its gore, now lay. Among the throng of men, women and children, most of the former more than slightly elevated by drinking copious draughts of a kind of beer made from the kuhari grain, were three Khonds carrying long poles surmounted by huge bunches of peacock feathers that blazed in the sunlight like emeralds and sapphires. The funeral dance now commenced. The dance itself is simple in the extreme, for, when the right spot was reached, old men and young began gyrating round and round in a large circle, a perfect human merry-go-round. The old grey-beards, plodding slowly round the ring, and stamping on the soil with their aged feet, presented a great contrast to the younger and wilder men, who capered and pranced about, sometimes outside the circle, waving their tanghis in the air, and every now and then leaping up to the slain buffalo, and dipping their axes into its blood, and then back again, dancing more wildly than ever, round and round from west to east, till the eye ached to behold the perpetual motion of this animated wheel. In the centre revolved the three men with the huge bunches of peacock feathers afore-mentioned. When any dropped out of the circle to rest there were many eager and willing to take their places, and so, with relays of fresh dancers, this human circle revolved on for three whole days, only ceasing at nightfall, when by large fires the various tribes cooked in the earthen pots provided the buffaloes presented by the new Pātro. In olden days, an animal was given to each village, but on this occasion only to a circle of villages, occasioning thereby certain grumblings among the wiseacres for the good old days of the past, when not only buffaloes in plenty, but Meriah human victims as well were lavishly provided and sacrificed. ‘Ichabod,’ said they in Khond, ‘the glory of the Māliahs hath departed.’ On the afternoon of the third day, the Pātros, Molikas, Bissoyis, and others of the great men began to depart with their retainers for their distant homes in the jungles, having had a thoroughly good time. The women, who had been very shy at first, fled at my approach, now, after three days’ familiarity with a white face, began to show symptoms of friendliness, so that they allowed me to go quite near to them to examine their pretty necklaces of coloured grasses, silver coins, and curious beads, and to count the numbers of small sticks (generally about twelve or fifteen) of broom that were arranged in the shape of a crescent round the outer edges of the pierced ears of each unmarried village belle, and to observe at close quarters the strange tattooed patterns in blue of zigzag and curve that to my eyes disfigured their otherwise comely faces. As to beauty of figure, I think very few can compare with a young and well-grown Khond maiden, with her straight back and handsome proportions. It was, therefore, without much difficulty that I persuaded some of them to dance before me. Six buxom girls stepped out, all of them the respectable daughters of well-to-do Khonds, prepared to dance the famous peacock dance. Round their supple but massive waists was twisted the strip of national Khond cloth of blue, red and white, and for bodices what could be more becoming than their glossy brown skins of nature’s millinery, gracefully wreathed with garlands of coloured grasses and strings of gay beads. The polished jet black hair, neatly tied in a knot at the back, and decorated with pretty lacquered and silver combs, or with forest flowers, added yet more to their picturesque appearance. Each girl now took a long strip of white cloth, and, winding it round her waist, allowed one end to trail at the back in the fashion of a Liberty sash. This was supposed to represent the tail of the peacock. Three of the girls then faced the three others, and, with their left hands resting on their hips, and their elbows sticking out (to represent the wings), and the right arms extended in front with the fingers outstretched to simulate the neck and beak, began to dance to the ear-piercing shrieks of cracked trumpet, and to the deep beatings of a Māliah drum marking excellent time. On and on they danced, advancing and retiring, and now and then crossing over (not unlike the first figure of the quadrille), while their tinkling feet, ‘like little mice, stole in and out,’ the heels alternately clashing against each other, in exact time to the music, and the lips gracefully waving from side to side as they advanced or retired. There was perfect grace of movements combined with extreme modesty, the large expressive eyes veiled by the long lashes never once being raised, and the whole demeanour utterly oblivious to the crowd of enthusiastic admirers that surrounded them on all sides. But for the wild scene around, the noise and shrieking of instruments, and the fantastic dresses of the Khonds (many of whom had buffalo horns tied on to their painted faces, or had decorated their heads with immense wigs of long black hair), one might easily have supposed these shrinking damsels to have been the pick of a Mission School specially selected for propriety to dance the South Indian kummi before, say, an itinerant Bishop of ascetic tendencies and æsthetic temperament. When their heaving, panting bodies showed that exhausted nature claimed them for her own, the man with the trumpet or the drum would rush up, and blow or beat it almost under their drooping heads, urging them with shouts and gesticulations to further energy, till at length the shades of night crept over the hills, and, with one accord, the dancing and the deafening music ceased, while the six girls stole quietly back and were soon lost in the crowd.”

Of superstitions among the Kondhs, the following are recorded by Mr. Jayaram Moodaliar:—

“When a Kondh starts out on a shooting expedition, if he first meets an adult female, married or unmarried, he will return home, and ask a child to tell the females to keep out of his way. He will then make a fresh start, and, if he meets a female, will wave his hand to her as a sign that she must keep clear of him. Before a party start out for shooting, they warn the females not to come in their way. The Kondh believes that, if he sees a female, he will not come across animals in the jungle to shoot. If a woman is in her menses, her husband, brothers, and sons living under the same roof, will not go out shooting for the same reason.

A Kondh will not leave his village when a jāthra (festival) is being celebrated, lest the god Pennu should visit his wrath on him.