2. Internal structure.
The caste has two main divisions in Berār, the Dukar Kolhātis and the Khām or Pāl Kolhātis. The name of the former is derived from dukar, hog, because they are accustomed to hunt the wild pig with dogs and spears when these animals become too numerous and damage the crops of the villagers. They also labour for themselves by cultivating land and taking service as village watchmen; and they are daring criminals and commit dacoity, burglary and theft; but they do not steal cattle. The Khām Kolhātis, on the other hand, are a lazy, good-for-nothing class of men, who, beyond making a few combs and shuttles of bone, will set their hands to no kind of labour, but subsist mainly by the immoral pursuits of their women. At every large fair may be seen some of the portable huts of this tribe, made of rusa grass,[3] the women decked in jewels and gaudy attire sitting at each door, while the men are lounging lazily at the back. The Dukar Kolhāti women, Mr. Kitts states, also resort to the same mode of life, but take up their abode in villages instead of attending fairs. Among the Dukar Kolhātis the subdivisions have Rājpūt names; and just as a Chauhān Rājpūt may not marry another Chauhān so also a Chauhān Dukar Kolhāti may not marry a person of his own clan. In Bilāspur they are said to have four subcastes, the Marethi or those coming from the Marātha country, the Bānsberia or pole-jumpers, the Suarwāle or hunters of the wild pig, and the Muhammadan Kolhātis, none of whom marry or take food with each other. Each group is further subdivided into the Asal and Kamsal (Kam-asal), or the pure and mixed Kolhātis, who marry among themselves, outsiders being admitted to the Kamsal or mixed group.
3. Marriage.
The marriage ceremony in Berār[4] consists simply in a feast at which the bride and bridegroom, dressed in new clothes, preside. Much liquor is consumed and the dancing-girls of the tribe dance before them, and the happy couple are considered duly married according to Kolhāti rites. Married women do not perform in public and are no less moral and faithful than those of other castes, while those brought up as dancing-girls do not marry at all. In Bilāspur weddings are arranged through the headman of the village, who receives a fee for his services, and the ceremony includes some of the ordinary Hindu rites. Here a widow is compelled to marry her late husband’s younger brother on pain of exclusion from caste. People of almost any caste may become Kolhātis. When an outsider is admitted he must have a sponsor into whose clan he is adopted. A feast is given to the caste, and the applicant catches the right little finger of his sponsor before the assembly. Great numbers of Rājpūts and Muhammadans join them, and on the other hand a large proportion of the fair but frail Kolhātis embrace the Muhammadan faith.[5]
4. Funeral rites.
The bodies of children are buried, and those of the adult dead may be either buried or cremated. Mr. Kitts states that on the third day, if they can afford the ceremony, they bring back the skull and placing it on a bed offer to it powder, dates and betel-leaves; and after a feast lasting for three days it is again buried. According to Major Gunthorpe the proceedings are more elaborate: “Each division of the caste has its own burial-ground in some special spot, to which it is the heart’s desire of every Kolhāti to carry, when he can afford it, the bones of his deceased relatives. After the cremation of an adult the bones are collected and buried pending such time as they can be conveyed to the appointed cemetery, if this be at a distance. When the time comes, that is, when means can be found for the removal, the bones are disinterred and placed in two saddle-bags on a donkey, the skull and upper bones in the right bag and the leg and lower bones in the left. The ass is then led to the deceased’s house, where the bags of bones are placed under a canopy made ready for their reception. High festival, as for a marriage, is held for three days, and at the end of this time the bags are replaced on the donkey, and with tom-toms beating and dancing-girls of the tribe dancing in front, the animal is led off to the cemetery. On arrival, the bags, with the bones in them, are laid in a circular hole, and over it a stone is placed to mark the spot, and covered with oil and vermilion; and the spirit of the deceased is then considered to be appeased.” They believe that the spirits of dead ancestors enter the bodies of the living and work evil to them, unless they are appeased with offerings. The Dukar Kolhātis offer a boar to the spirits of male ancestors and a sow to females. An offering of a boar is also made to Bhagwān (Vishnu), who is the principal deity of the caste and is worshipped with great ceremony every second year.[6]