5. Religion
The Pankas worship only Kabīr. They prepare a chauka and, sitting in it, sing songs in his praise, and a cocoanut is afterwards broken and distributed to those who are present. The assembly is presided over by a Mahant or priest and the chauka is prepared by his subordinate called the Dīwān. The offices of Mahant and Dīwān are hereditary, and they officiate for a collection of ten or fifteen villages. Otherwise the caste perform no special worship, but observe the full moon days of Māgh (January), Phāgun (February) and Kārtik (October) as fasts in honour of Kabīr. Some of the Kabirhas observe the Hindu festivals, and the Saktahas, as already stated, have the same religious practices as other Hindus. They admit into the community members of most castes except the impure ones. In Chhattīsgarh a new convert is shaved and the other Pankas wash their feet over him in order to purify him. He then breaks a stick in token of having given up his former caste and is invested with a necklace of tulsi[2] beads. A woman of any such caste who has gone wrong with a man of the Panka caste may be admitted after she has lived with him for a certain period on probation, during which her conduct must be satisfactory, her paramour also being put out of caste for the same time. Both are then shaved and invested with the necklaces of tulsi beads. In Mandla a new convert must clean and whitewash his house and then vacate it with his family while the Panch or caste committee come and stay there for some time in order to purify it. While they are there neither the owner nor any member of his family may enter the house. The Panch then proceed to the riverside and cook food, after driving the new convert across the river by pelting him with cowdung. Here he changes his clothes and puts on new ones, and coming back again across the stream is made to stand in the chauk and sip the urine of a calf. The chauk is then washed out and a fresh one made with lines of flour, and standing in this the convert receives to drink the dal, that is, water in which a little betel, raw sugar and black pepper have been mixed and a piece of gold dipped. In the evening the Panch again take their food in the convert’s house, while he eats outside it at a distance. Then he again sips the dal, and the Mahant or priest takes him on his lap and a cloth is put over them both; the Mahant whispers the mantra or sacred verse into his ear, and he is finally considered to have become a full Kabirha Panka and admitted to eat with the Panch.
6. Other customs
The Pankas are strict vegetarians and do not drink liquor. A Kabirha Panka is put out of caste for eating flesh meat. Both men and women generally wear white clothes, and men have the garland of beads round the neck. The dead are buried, being laid on the back with the head pointing to the north. After a funeral the mourners bathe and then break a cocoanut over the grave and distribute it among themselves. On the tenth day they go again and break a cocoanut and each man buries a little piece of it in the earth over the grave. A little cup made of flour containing a lamp is placed on the grave for three days afterwards, and some food and water are put in a leaf cup outside the house for the same period. During these days the family do not cook for themselves but are supplied with food by their friends. After childbirth a mother is supposed not to eat food during the time that the midwife attends on her, on account of the impurity caused by this woman’s presence in the room.
7. Occupation
The caste are generally weavers, producing coarse country cloth, and a number of them serve as village watchmen, while others are cultivators and labourers. They will not grow sān-hemp nor breed tasar silk cocoons. They are somewhat poorly esteemed by their neighbours, who say of them, ‘Where a Panka can get a little boiled rice and a pumpkin, he will stay for ever,’ meaning that he is satisfied with this and will not work to get more. Another saying is, ‘The Panka felt brave and thought he would go to war; but he set out to fight a frog and was beaten’; and another, ‘Every man tells one lie a day; but the Ahīr tells sixteen, the Chamār twenty, and the lies of the Panka cannot be counted.’ Such gibes, however, do not really mean much. Owing to the abstinence of the Pankas from flesh and liquor they rank above the Gāndas and other impure castes. In Bilāspur they are generally held to be quiet and industrious.[3] In Chhattīsgarh the Pankas are considered above the average in intelligence and sometimes act as spokesmen for the village people and as advisers to zamīndārs and village proprietors. Some of them become religious mendicants and act as gurus or preceptors to Kabīrpanthis.[4]
[1] This article is compiled from papers by Pyāre Lāl Misra, Ethnographic clerk, and Hazari Lāl, Manager, Court of Wards, Chānda.
[2] The basil plant.
[3] Bilaspur Settlement Report (1868), p. 49.