Dead bodies were usually burned, and the ashes thrown into the sacred stream. Sometimes this could not be done, as, for instance, when one died upon an expedition, and there was no time or means to make a funeral pyre. In such cases the body would be hastily buried, or, as once occurred, thrust into a porcupine's hole, and some of the fingers cut off and carried home to the sorrowing relatives. The part was then burned for the whole, and the gang presented a widow with money to distribute in alms, and enabled her to make a handsome offering to the family priest. Each colony had two or three especial deities, who were the spirits of ancestors distinguished in the "imperial business," as they proudly designated their vocation. When they desired to know who of their forefathers was the most sympathetic, the most interested in their welfare, they carefully noted the incoherent ravings of a delirious man, or one suffering from epilepsy. His rambling talk was attributed to the temporary possession of his tongue by some departed spirit. If there were any doubt as to whose it was, the family priest, or a relative of the sick man, would throw on the ground a few grains of wheat, or coloured glass beads, mentioning the name of some ancestor, and at the same time crying odd or even. If they cried correctly two or three times consecutively, they had discovered the demigod. They then sacrificed a goat, or some other animal, that the pleasant odour of the culinary operations might gratify the nostrils of the "daimon," while the assembled friends loudly sang his praises. If the patient began to amend during the sacrifice, it was deemed a full confirmation of their belief, and a new "Lar familiaris," or household god was added to the polytheism of the colony.
The chief deities worshipped by the Dacoits in common were Kalee or Davee, and Sooruj Deota or Sun God. Before setting out upon an expedition, they were always careful to take the auspices; which was done in this manner. Having procured several goats, the principal men assembled, and while one of them held some water in his mouth, the others prayed, "O thou Sun God! And O all ye other gods! if we are to succeed in the enterprise we are about to undertake, we pray ye to cause these goats to shake their bodies!" If they do not shake them after the gods have been thus duly invoked, the enterprise must not be entered upon, and the goats are not sacrificed. "We then try the auspices with the wheat; we have a handful of wheat, a large shell, a brass jug, cloth, and frankincense (gogul), and scented wood (dhoop) to burn. We burn the frankincense and scented wood, and blow the shell; and taking out a pinch of the grains, put them on the cloth and count them. If they come up odd, the omen is favourable; if even, it is bad. After this, which we call the auspices of the Akut, we take that of the Seearnee, or female jackal. If it calls on the left, it is good; if on the right, it is bad. If the omens turn out favourable in all three trials then we have no fear whatever; but if they are favourable in only one trial out of the three, the enterprise must be given up."
The Bowrees appear to have been an off-set of the Bagree Dacoits. They affected to be descended from Rajpoots, but in truth very little is known as to their origin. Their peculiar dialect, however, was Guzerattee, though for generations past they had not even visited that province, but the circumstance is in favour of the theory that traces them to Chittore, the capital of Mewar, adjacent to Guzerat, whence they are believed to have emigrated when Akhbar captured that city in 1567. According to the deposition of Dhokul Sing, made in 1839, the Bowrees were "not a people of yesterday—we are of ancient and illustrious descent." Their ancestor, Pardhee, was one of the companions of Ram in his expedition for the recovery of Seeta. "If," said this approver, "if any prince happens to have an enemy that he wishes to have made away with, he sends for some of our tribe, and says, 'Go, and bring such or such an one's head.' We go, and steal into his sleeping apartments, and take off the person's head without any other person knowing anything about it. If the prince wanted, not the head of his enemy, but the gold tassels of the bed on which he lay asleep, we brought them to him. In consequence of our skill in these matters, we were held everywhere in high esteem; and we served princes and had never occasion to labour at tillage. We who came to the Delhi territory (they were mostly located about Delhi, Mozuffernugur, and Meerut), and were called Bowrees, took to thieving. Princes still employed us to take off the heads of their enemies, and rob them of their valuables. At present the Bowrees confine themselves almost exclusively to robbing tents; they do not steal cattle, or cut into ("dig through") houses; but they will rob a cart on the highway occasionally—any other trade than robbery they never take to." During the absence of the men on some thriving expedition, their wives and families were protected and maintained by the Zemindar, on whose land they resided, and who likewise was ever ready to advance a small sum of money to enable his respectable tenants to take to the road—secure of repayment with usury. Before setting out they sacrificed a goat to Davee, and offered burnt offerings.
They also presented sweetmeats to the goddess, and vowed no stinted quantity should they return successful from their wanderings. To omens they paid great regard. A couplet in familiar use among them was to the effect, that "if the cow and the deer cross from the left to the right, and the snake from right to left, and the blue jay from left to right, even the wealth that has gone from thee shall come back."
Of the cognate tribes of Sanseea and Bereea Dacoits some interesting details may be gathered from the official reports of the Commissioners for the suppression of Dacoitee. According to tradition there lived a long time ago, in the province or Mharwar, two uterine brothers named Sains Mull and Mullanoor. Sains was very illiterate and found it extremely difficult to earn a livelihood by his own exertions. So he went to the god Bhugwan and represented his case. The deity heard him with compassion and gave him an order upon every village in the world for the payment of half a crown from each. Returning home the foolish fellow showed the paper to his brother, who, moved by envy, tore it in pieces. A fraternal squabble naturally ensued, which at length terminated by both of them repairing to Bughwan. But the god declined to give a second order, and advised Mullanoor to assume the life of a mendicant, while his brother was to maintain himself by singing and dancing. From the former were descended the Bereeas, who wandered about the country, playing the dhol (a kind of drum), begging and stealing: the men and women living together in a promiscuous state of extreme socialism. The descendents of the other brother were called Sanseeas, also a roving tribe, pretending to deal in cattle, goats, horses, cloth, grain, or anything else that came into their hands. They were generally in great request as Bhâts, or Bards at the marriage festivals of the Jats. Their business was to trace the lineage of their entertainer to the founders of the Jat family, and celebrate the heroic virtues of his ancestors. If the host proved a niggard, and refused to comply with the exorbitant demands of these vagabond minstrels, they would make an effigy of his father and parade it up and down before his house;—or even, in extreme cases, suspend it from a bamboo and fix it over his door, by which means he temporarily lost caste, so that none of his neighbours would drink or smoke with him. In former times these Bhâts almost lived upon the Jats, each claiming, as his peculiar province, fifty or a hundred families who, in succession, gave him yearly one day's food and two shillings and sixpence in money. The Sanseeas were divided into two sub-clans, the Malhas and the Kalkas—the former being descended from Sains Mull's son, and the latter from his grand-daughter by an adopted son. A Malha could not marry a Malha, nor a Kalka a Kalka, but the young men of the one family chose their wives from among the young women of the other. Originally the Sanseeas confined themselves to mendicancy, minstrelsy, and cattle-lifting, but after a time, emboldened by poverty or impunity, they took to Dacoitee, which they reduced to a regular system.
In their expeditions they left their old men and women, and their children at home, under the protection of a friendly Zemindar, but took with them a few young women and such as had children at the breast, with a view to avert suspicion. When they arrived within two days' march of the scene of their projected operations, the main body halted, while the leader with a small party of followers, male and female, went on to reconnoitre and make the necessary preparations. Their usual plan was to enter a liquor shop, and while purchasing some spirits, to ask the name of some respectable money-changer or banker. They thus learnt the address of the one who was esteemed the wealthiest. On the following morning at early dawn they repaired to his shop, because at that hour he would be obliged to go to his treasure-chest, whereas, later in the day he would have a small supply of money beside him for ordinary business. Having now ascertained where his hoard was deposited, and such other particulars as might be useful, they proceeded to the bazar and procured a sufficient quantity of bamboos for spear-staves. These they buried near the town on their way back to the camp. All things being ready they took some spirituous liquor and spilling a little on the ground, prayed aloud: "O Davee! Mother! If we succeed in our business and get a good deal of booty, we will make a grand poojah (religious festival) to thee, and offer thee a cocoa-nut!" The goddess being propitiated, the next step was to assign to every man his particular post: some to act as scouts, others to guard the avenues, others again to rush into the house, while the Jemadar, or leader, reserved to himself the task of breaking open the money-chest with his trusty hatchet. Early next morning they advanced to an easy distance of the place, and some of them went forward for the spear-staves buried on the previous day. A Sanseea, of approved tact and intelligence again entered the town to purchase oil for the torches, and to make the final reconnoissance. So soon as darkness descended, the gang threw off their clothes and started at a rapid pace, without once looking behind. If they had reason to expect that the local police would be vigilant—a rare occurrence—they concealed their spears in a bundle of reeds or coarse straw, which one of them carried on his head, followed by another to personate the purchaser of the fodder. On arriving in front of the shop, the bundle was thrown on the ground, the cord hastily loosened, the spears extracted and the torches lighted. Then the Jemadar invoked the aid of his patron deity and vowed a grateful offering if the chest should at once yield to his blows. Raising their war-cry Deen! Deen! they furiously assaulted the bystanders, pelting them with stones, striking them with their spears, and even wounding them if obstinate. The Jemadar, the torch-bearers, and four or five determined men, under favour of the tumult, broke into the house, smashing doors and all other impediments. In a few minutes afterwards the house was abandoned by the unwelcome intruders, who moved off to the place of rendezvous as fast as their weighty plunder would permit them; the Jemadar piously imploring of Bhugwan to send their pursuers in a wrong direction. Should one of the gang happen to have been slain, his spirit was likewise invoked, and spirituous liquor and a goat promised to his manes. At every temple on the road, and at every stream they had to cross, they threw down a rupee or two to propitiate the genius of the place. When within a couple of miles of their encampment they called aloud Koo-Koo. If no response were heard they pushed on rapidly, occasionally imitating the call of the partridge: when close at hand they uttered a hissing noise. On their actual arrival they were certain to find everything packed up and ready for a start. Mounted on their rough, hardy little ponies they would cover a distance of sixty to eighty miles in twenty-four hours for two or three consecutive days, until fairly beyond all danger of pursuit. Any one was allowed to join a gang on payment of a few rupees, though not to carry a spear or enter the house until his coolness and courage had been freely tested. If a Dacoit committed homicide he was obliged to expiate his blood-guiltiness by making a poojah, at which he trusted his comrades with half a crown's worth of liquor. In the division of spoils the Jemadar claimed one-tenth in addition to the repayment of his advances towards fitting out the expedition. The balance was then divided among the entire gang, the leader again sharing, and provision was made for the wounded and for the widows of those who had fallen.
The religious creed of the Sanseeas was sufficiently simple. "I believe" said one of them, "in Ram (God), Bhowanee, and Sheik Fureed, whose shrine is at Gierur, about eighteen miles from Hingunghat. There we make offerings after a successful expedition. Sheikh Fureed acquired his saintship thus:—he first performed a devotional penance of twelve years, carrying about with him a load of wood tied to his stomach, but that was not accepted: next another, in which he ate nothing but forest leaves for twelve years—not accepted: lastly, his third trip, he hung himself up by the heels in iron chains in a Baolee (a well) at Gierur; then he was taken up and asked what he wanted; he said, to have every request granted; this was promised, and he disappeared. Many people now pray to him for luck."
Like the Thugs and the other Dacoits, the Sanseeas prided themselves on the exact observance of omens. They looked upon it as unfortunate to hear the cry of the jackal or the cat, a kite screaming while sitting on a tree, the braying of an ass, a flute, or the lamentation over the dead. It was equally inauspicious to see a dog run away with any one's food, a woman break a water-pitcher, a hare, a wolf, a fox, a chamelion, an oil-vender, a carpenter, a blacksmith, two cows tied together, or a thief in custody. If they encountered a corpse, or if a turban fell off, or the Jemadar forgot to put some bread in his waist-belt, or left his spear or axe behind him—the expedition must be deferred. But nothing could be more promising than to meet a woman selling milk, or any one carrying a bag of money, or a basket of grain, or fish, or a pitcher of water. Nor was it less encouraging to see a calf sucking, or a pig, or a blue jay, or a marriage procession.
Their most binding form of attestation was by means of a piece of new cotton cloth, exactly 1¼ cubit square, in which was tied up half-a-pound of coarse sugar. The accuser hung the parcel upon the branch of a peepul tree, and challenged the accused to touch it. If the latter foreswore himself, he would sicken within three days. Another ordeal was to tie seven peepul leaves, one over the other, on the palm of the suspected person's hand, on which a red-hot iron plate was then placed. Unless he carried this seven paces without suffering any inconvenience and deposited it upon seven thorns arranged to receive it, he was pronounced guilty. At other times a Punchayut, or Council of Elders, seated themselves on the bank of a river, when one of them stepped forward and fired two arrows together from one bow, the one in the name of Bhugwan, the other in that of the Punchayut. The furthest one was then stuck upright in the ground, while a man walked into the stream up to his breast and planted a bamboo in the channel. The accused also entered the water and laid hold of the pole. A member of the Punchayut having clapped his hands seven times as a signal for him to plunge his head under the water, set off at the top of his speed for the arrow, brought it back, and again clapped his hands seven times. If the accused had kept his head immersed until this second signal, he was deemed innocent: otherwise, his guilt was held to be satisfactorily proven.
When a male child was born, his head was carefully shaved, with the exception of a small spot dedicated to Bhugwan. This lock of hair was all that he was permitted to wear until the completion of his tenth or twelfth year, when it also was shorn off by the barber, and his relatives gave a grand entertainment to the tribe. Those who died before this ceremony were simply buried with the face downwards: the only solemnity being the preparation of some sweet cakes, of which three were given to a dog and the rest consumed by relatives and friends. But those who survived this important epoch of their lives were, after death, placed on a funeral pyre. When the fire was extinguished, the ashes were carefully examined and the bones buried on the spot. Great feasting and jollity then followed, and the spirit of the deceased, propitiated by an offering of swines' flesh and spirits, was invoked to aid and protect his family.