1. Origin of the caste.
Gowāri.[1]—The herdsman or grazier caste of the Marātha country, corresponding to the Ahīrs or Gaolis. The name is derived from gai or gao, the cow, and means a cowherd. The Gowāris numbered more than 150,000 persons in 1911, of whom nearly 120,000 belonged to the Nāgpur division and nearly 30,000 to Berār. In localities where the Gowāris predominate, Ahīrs or Gaolis, the regular herdsman caste, are found only in small numbers. The honorific title of the Gowāris is Dhare, which is said to mean ‘One who keeps cattle.’ The Gowāris rank distinctly below the Ahīrs or Gaolis. The legend of their origin is that an Ahīr, who was tending the cows of Krishna, stood in need of a helper. He found a small boy in the forest and took him home and brought him up. He then gave to the boy the work of grazing cows in the jungle, while he himself stayed at home and made milk and butter. This boy was the ancestor of the Gowāri caste. His descendants took to eating fowls and peacocks and drinking liquor, and hence were degraded below the Gaolis. But the latter will allow Gowāris to sit at their feasts and eat, they will carry the corpse of a Gowāri to the grave, and they will act as members of the panchāyat in readmitting a Gowāri who has been put out of caste. In the Marātha country any man who touches the corpse of a man of another caste is temporarily excommunicated, and the fact that a Gaoli will do this for a Gowāri demonstrates the close relationship of the castes. The legend, in fact, indicates quite clearly and correctly the origin of the Gowāris. The small boy in the forest was a Gond, and the Gowāri caste is of mixed descent from Ahīrs and Gonds. The Ahīrs or Gaolis of the Marātha country have largely abandoned the work of grazing cattle in the forest, and have taken to the more profitable business of making milk and ghī. The herdsman’s duties have been relegated to the mixed class of Gowāris, produced from the unions of Ahīrs and Gonds in the forests, and not improbably including a considerable section of pure Gond blood. At present only Gaolis and no other caste are admitted into the Gowāri community, though there is evidence that the rule was not formerly so strict.
2. Subcastes.
The Gowāris have three divisions, the Gai Gowāri, Inga, and Māria or Gond Gowāri. The Gai or cow Gowāris are the highest and probably have more Gaoli blood in them. The Inga and Māria or Gond Gowāris are more directly derived from the Gonds. Māria is the name given to a large section of the Gond tribe in Chānda. Both the other two subcastes will take cooked food from the Gai Gowāris and the Gond Gowāris from the Inga, but the Inga subcaste will not take it from the Gond, nor the Gai Gowāris from either of the other two. The Gond Gowāris have been treated as a distinct caste and a separate article is given on them, but at the census Mr. Marten has amalgamated them with the Gowāris. This is probably more correct, as they are locally held to be a branch of the caste. But their customs differ in some points from those of the other Gowāris. They will admit outsiders from any respectable caste and worship the Gond gods,[2] and there seems no harm, therefore, in allowing the separate article on them to remain.
3. Totemism and exogamy.
The Gowāris have exogamous sections of the titular and totemistic types, such as Chachania from chachan, a bird, Lohār from loha iron, Ambadāre a mango-branch, Kohria from the Kohri or Kohli caste, Sarwaina a Gond sept, and Rāwat the name of the Ahīr caste in Chhattīsgarh. Some septs do not permit intermarriage between their members, saying that they are Dūdh-Bhais or foster-brothers, born from the same mother. Thus the Chachania, Kohria, Senwaria, Sendua (vermilion) and Wāgare (tiger) septs cannot intermarry. They say that their fathers were different, but their mothers were related or one and the same. This is apparently a relic of polyandry, and it is possible that in some cases the Gonds may have allowed Ahīrs sojourning in the forest to have access to their wives during the period of their stay. If this was permitted to Ahīrs of different sections coming to the same Gond village in successive years, the offspring might be the ancestors of sections who consider themselves to be related to each other in the manner of the Gowāri sections.
Marriage is prohibited within the same section or kur, and between sections related to each other as Dūdh-Bhais in the manner explained above. A man can marry his daughter to his sister’s son, but cannot take her daughter for his son. The children of two sisters cannot be married.