2. Marriage.
The caste have the usual system of exogamous groups, some of which are named after villages, while the designations of others are apparently nicknames given to the founder of the clan, as Bagmār, a tiger-killer, Bhagoria, a runaway, and so on. They employ a Brāhman to calculate the horoscopes of a bridal couple and fix the date of their wedding, but if he says the marriage is inauspicious, they merely obtain the permission of the caste panchāyat and celebrate it on a Saturday or Sunday. Apparently, however, they do not consult real Brāhmans, but merely priests of their own caste whom they call Balāhi Brāhmans. These Brāhmans are, nevertheless, said to recite the Satya Nārāyan Katha. They also have gurus or spiritual preceptors, being members of the caste who have joined the mendicant orders; and Bhāts or genealogists of their own caste who beg at their weddings. They have the practice of serving for a wife, known as Gharjamai or Lamjhana. When the pauper suitor is finally married at the expense of his wife’s father, a marriage-shed is erected for him at the house of some neighbour, but his own family are not invited to the wedding.
After marriage a girl goes to her husband’s house for a few days and returns. The first Diwāli or Akha-tīj festival after the wedding must also be passed at the husband’s house, but consummation is not effected until the aina or gauna ceremony is performed on the attainment of puberty. The cost of a wedding is about Rs. 80 to the bridegroom’s family and Rs. 20 to the bride’s family. A widow is forbidden to marry her late husband’s brother or other relatives. At the wedding she is dressed in new clothes, and the foreheads of the couple are marked with cowdung as a sign of purification. They then proceed by night to the husband’s village, and the woman waits till morning in some empty building, when she enters her husband’s house carrying two water-pots on her head in token of the fertility which she is to bring to it.
3. Other customs.
Like the Mahārs, the Balāhis must not kill a dog or a cat under pain of expulsion; but it is peculiar that in their case the bear is held equally sacred, this being probably a residue of some totemistic observance. The most binding form of oath which they can use is by any one of these animals. The Balāhis will admit any Hindu into the community except a man of the very lowest castes, and also Gonds and Korkus. The head and face of the neophyte are shaved clean, and he is made to lie on the ground under a string-cot; a number of the Balāhis sit on this and wash themselves, letting the water drip from their bodies on to the man below until he is well drenched; he then gives a feast to the caste-fellows, and is considered to have become a Balāhi. It is reported also that they will receive back into the community Balāhi women who have lived with men of other castes and even with Jains and Muhammadans. They will take food from members of these religions and of any Hindu caste, except the most impure.
[1] This article is based on papers by Mr. Habīb Ullah, Pleader, Burhānpur, Mr. W. Bagley, Subdivisional Officer, and Munsh Kanhya Lāl, of the Gazetteer office.
[2] This legend is probably a vague reminiscence of the historical fact that a Mālwa army was misled by a Gond guide in the Nimār forests and cut up by the local Muhammadan ruler. The well-known Rāja Mān of Jodhpur was, it is believed, never in Nimār.
[3] The ghāt or river-bank for the disposal of corpses.