As a rule, the tribe bury the dead, though the Hindu custom of cremation is coming into fashion among the well-to-do. Before the interment they carry the corpse seven times round the grave, and it is buried with the feet pointing to the north. They observe mourning for ten days and abstain from animal food and liquor during that period. A curious custom is reported from the Bilāspur District, where it is said that children cut a small piece of flesh from the finger of a dead parent and swallow it, considering this as a requital for the labour of the mother in having carried the child for nine months in her womb. So in return they carry a piece of her flesh in their bodies. But the correct explanation as given by Sir J. G. Frazer is that they do it to prevent themselves from being haunted by the ghosts of their parents. “Thus Orestes,[12] after he had gone mad from murdering his mother, recovered his wits by biting off one of his own fingers; since his victim was his own mother it might be supposed that the tasting of his own blood was the same as hers; and the furies of his murdered mother, which had appeared black to him before, appeared white as soon as he had mutilated himself in this way. The Indians of Guiana believe that an avenger of blood who has slain his man must go mad unless he tastes the blood of his victim, the notion apparently being that the ghost drives him crazy. A similar custom was observed by the Maoris in battle. When a warrior had slain his foe in combat, he tasted his blood, believing that this preserved him from the avenging spirit (atua) of his victim; for they imagined that ‘the moment a slayer had tasted the blood of the slain, the dead man became a part of his being and placed him under the protection of the atua or guardian-spirit of the deceased.’ Some of the North American Indians also drank the blood of their enemies in battle. Strange as it may seem, this truly savage superstition exists apparently in Italy to this day. There is a widespread opinion in Calabria that if a murderer is to escape he must suck his victim’s blood from the reeking blade of the dagger with which he did the deed.”
7. Religion.
The religion of the tribe is of the usual animistic type. Colonel Dalton notes that they have, like the Kols, a village priest, known as Pahan or Baiga. He is always one of the impure tribes, a Bhuiya, a Kharwār or a Korwa, and he offers a great triennial sacrifice of a buffalo in the sacred grove, or on a rock near the village. The fact that the Khairwārs employed members of the Korwa and Bhuiya tribes as their village priests may be taken to indicate that the latter are the earlier residents of the country, and are on this account employed by the Khairwārs as later arrivals for the conciliation of the indigenous deities. Colonel Dalton states that the Khairwārs made no prayers to any of the Hindu gods, but when in great trouble they appealed to the sun. In the Central Provinces the main body of the tribe, and particularly those who belong to the landholding class, profess the Hindu religion.
8. Inheritance.
The Khairwārs have now also adopted the Hindu rule of inheritance, and have abandoned the tribal custom which Sir H. Risley records as existing in Bengal. “Here the eldest son of the senior wife, even if younger than one of the sons of the second wife, inherits the entire property, subject to the obligation of providing for all other legitimate children. If the inheritance consists of land, the heir is expected to create separate maintenance grants in favour of his younger brothers. Daughters can never inherit, but are entitled to live in the ancestral home till they are married.”[13]
9. The Khairwas of Damoh.
The Khairwas or Khairwārs of the Kaimur hills are derived, as already seen, from the Gonds and Savars, and therefore are ethnologically a distinct group from those of the Chota Nāgpur plateau, who have been described above. But as nearly every caste is made up of diverse ethnological elements held together by the tie of a common occupation, it does not seem worth while to treat these groups separately. Colonel Dalton, who also identifies them with the main tribe, records an interesting notice of them at an earlier period:[14]