The caste have few traditions of origin. Their usual story is that during Siva’s absence the goddess Pārvati felt nervous because she had no doorkeeper to her palace, and therefore she made the god Ganesh from the sweat of her body and set him to guard the southern gate. But when Siva returned Ganesh did not know him and refused to let him enter; on which Siva was so enraged that he cut off the head of Ganesh with a stroke of his sword. He then entered the palace, and Pārvati, observing the blood on his sword, asked him what had happened, and reproached him bitterly for having slain her son. Siva was distressed, but said that he could not replace the head as it was already reduced to ashes. But he said that if any animal could be found looking towards the south he could put its head on Ganesh and bring him to life. As it happened a trader was then resting outside the palace and had with him an elephant, which was seated with its head to the south. So Siva quickly struck off the head of the elephant and placed it on the body of Ganesh and brought him to life again, and thus Ganesh got his elephant’s head. But the trader made loud lamentation about the loss of his elephant, so to pacify him Siva made a pestle and mortar, utensils till then unknown, and showed him how to pound oil-seeds in them and express the oil, and enjoined him to earn a livelihood in future by this calling, and his descendants after him; and so the merchant became the first Teli. And the pestle was considered to be Siva and the mortar Pārvati. This last statement affords some support to Mr. Marten’s suggestion[2] that a certain veneration attaching to the pestle and mortar and their use in marriage ceremonies may be due to the idea of their typifying the male and female organs. The fact that Ganesh was set to guard the southern gate, and that the animal whose head could be placed on his body must be looking to the south, probably hinges in some way on the south being the abode of Yama, the god of death, but the connection has been forgotten by the teller of the story; it may also be noted that if the palace was in the Himalayas, the site of Kailās or Siva’s heaven, the whole of India would be to the south. Another story related by Mr. Crooke[3] from Mīrzāpur is that a certain man had three sons and owned fifty-two mahua[4] trees. When he became aged and infirm he told his sons to divide the trees, but after some discussion they decided to divide not the trees themselves but their produce. One of them fell to picking up the leaves, and he was the ancestor of the Bharbhūnjas or grain-parchers, who still use leaves in their ovens; the second collected the flowers and corollas, and having distilled liquor from them became a Kalār; while the third took the kernels or fruit and crushed the oil out of them, and was the founder of the Teli caste. The country spirit generally drunk is distilled from the flowers of the mahua tree, and a cheap vegetable oil in common use is obtained from its seeds. The Telis and Kalārs are also castes of about the same status and have other points of resemblance; and the legend connecting them is therefore of some interest Some groups of Telis who have become landed proprietors or prospered in trade have stories giving them a more exalted origin. Thus the landholding Rāthor Telis of Mandla say that they were Rāthor Rājpūts who fled from the Muhammadans and threw away their swords and sacred threads; and the Telis of Nimār, several of whom are wealthy merchants, give out that their ancestors were Modh Banias from Gujarāt who had to take to oil-pressing for a livelihood under Muhammadan rule. But these legends may perhaps be considered a natural result of their rise in the world.
Teli’s oil-press
3. Endogamous subcastes
The caste has a large number of subdivisions. The principal groups in Chhattīsgarh are the Halia, Jharia and Ekbahia Telis. The Halias, who perhaps take their name from hal, a plough, are considered to be the best cultivators, and are said to have immigrated from Mandla some generations ago. Probably the bulk of the Hindu population of Chhattīsgarh came from this direction. The name Jharia means jungly or savage, and is commonly applied to the oldest residents, but the Jharia Telis are the highest local subcaste. They require the presence of a Brāhman at their weddings, and abstain generally from liquor, fowls and pork, to which the Halias are not averse. They also bathe the corpse before it is burnt or buried, an observance omitted by the Halias. The Jharias yoke only one bullock to the oil-press, and the Halias two, a distinction which is elsewhere sufficient of itself to produce separate subcastes. The Ekbahia (one-armed) Telis are so called because their women wear glass bangles only on the right hand and metal ones on the left. This is a custom of several castes whose women do manual labour, and the reason appears to be one of convenience, as glass bangles on the working arm would be continually getting broken. Among the Ekbahia Telis it is said that a woman considers it a point of honour to have these metal bangles as numerous and heavy as her arm can bear; and at a wedding a present of three bracelets from the bridegroom to the bride is held to be indispensable. The Madpotwa are a small subcaste living near the hills, who in former times distilled liquor; they keep pigs and poultry, and rank below the others. Other groups are the Kosarias, who are called after Kosala, the old name of Chhattīsgarh, and the Chhote or Little Telis, who are of illegitimate descent. Children born out of wedlock are relegated to this group.
In the Nāgpur country the principal subdivisions are the Ekbaile and Dobaile, so called because they yoke one and two bullocks respectively to the oil-press; the distinction is still maintained, the Dobaile being also known as Tarāne. This seems a trivial reason for barring intermarriage, but it must be remembered that the yoking of the bullock to the oil-press, coupled as it is with the necessity of blindfolding the animal, is considered a great sin on the Teli’s part and a degrading incident of his profession; the Teli’s worst fear is that after death his soul will pass into one of his own bullocks. The Yerande Telis are so called because they formerly pressed only the erandi or castor-oil seed, but the rule is no longer maintained. The Yerande women leave off wearing the choli or breast-cloth after they have had one child, and have nothing under the sāri or body-cloth, but they wear this folded double. The Ruthia group are said to be so called from the noise rut, rut made by the oil-mill in turning. They say they are descended from the Nāg or cobra. They salute the snake when they see it and refrain from killing it, and they will not make any drawing or sign having the semblance of a snake or use any article which may be supposed to be like it. The Sao Telis are the highest group in Wardha, and have eschewed the pressing of oil. The word Sao or Sāhu is the title of a moneylender, but they are usually cultivators or village proprietors. A Brāhman will enter a Sao Teli’s house, but not the houses of any other subcaste. Their women wear silver bangles on the right hand and glass ones on the left. The Batri subcaste are said to be so called from their growing the batar, a kind of pea, and the Hardia from raising the haldi or turmeric. The Teli-Kalārs appear to be a mixed group of Kalārs who have taken to the oilman’s profession, and the Teli-Banias are Telis who have become shopkeepers, and may be expected in the course of time to develop either into a plebeian group of Banias or an aristocratic one of Telis. In Nimār the Gujarāti Telis, who have now grown wealthy and prosperous, claim, as already seen, to be Modh Banias, and the same pretension is put forward by their fellow-castemen in Gujarāt itself. “The large class of oilmen known in Gujarāt as Modh-Ghanelis were originally Modh Banias, who by taking to making and selling oil lost their position as Banias”;[5] it seems doubtful, however, whether the reverse process has not really taken place. The Umre Telis also have the name of a subcaste of Banias. The landholding Rāthor Telis of Mandla, who now claim to be Rāthor Rājpūts, will be more fully noticed later. There are also several local subcastes, as the Mattha or Marātha Telis, who say they came from Pātan in Gujarāt, the Sirwas from the ancient city of Srāvasti in Gonda District, and the Kanaujia from Oudh.
4. Exogamous divisions
Each subcaste is divided into a number of exogamous groups for the regulation of marriages. The names of the groups appear to be taken either from villages or titles or nicknames. Most of them cannot be recognised, but the following are a few: Bāghmāre, a tiger-killer; Deshmukh, a village officer; Vaidya, a physician; Bāwankule, the fifty-two septs; Badwāik, the great ones; Satpute, seven sons; Bhājikhāya, an eater of vegetables; Satapaise, seven pice; Ghoremādia, a horse-killer; Chaudhri, a caste headman; Ardona, a kind of gram; Malghāti, a valley; Chandan-malāgar, one who presented sandalwood; and Sanichara, born on Saturday. Three septs, Dhurwa, Besrām, a hawk, and Sonwāni, gold-water, belong to the Gonds or other tribes. The clans of the Rāthor Telis of Mandla are said to be named after villages in Jubbulpore and Maihar State.
5. Marriage customs
The marriage of persons of the same sept and of first cousins is usually forbidden. A man may marry his wife’s younger sister while she herself is alive, but never her elder sister. An unmarried girl becoming pregnant by a man of the caste is married to him by the ceremony used for a widow, and she may be readmitted even after a liaison with an outsider among most Telis. In Chānda the parents of a girl who is not married before puberty are fined. The proposal comes from the boy’s side and a bride-price is usually paid, though not of large amount. The Halia Telis of Chhattīsgarh, like other agricultural castes, sometimes betroth their children when they are five or six months old, but as a rule no penalty attaches to the breaking of the betrothal. The betrothal is celebrated by the distribution of one or two rupees’ worth of liquor to the neighbours of the caste. As among other low castes, on the day before the wedding procession starts, the bridegroom goes round to all the houses in the village and his sister dances round him with her head bent, and all the people give him presents. This is known as the Binaiki or Farewell, and the bride does the same in her village. Among the Jharia Telis the women go and worship the marriage-post at the carpenter’s house while it is being made. In this subcaste the bridegroom goes to the wedding in a cart and not on horseback or in a litter as among some castes. The rule may perhaps be a recognition of their humble station. The Halia subcaste can dispense with the presence of a Brāhman at the wedding, but not the Jharias. In Wardha the bridegroom’s head is covered with a blanket, over which is placed the marriage-crown. On the arrival of the bridegroom’s party they are regaled with sherbet or sugar and water by the bride’s relatives, and sometimes red pepper is mixed with this by way of a joke. At a wedding of the Gujarāti Tells in Nimār the caste-priest carries the tutelary goddess Kāli in procession, and in front of her a pot filled with burning cotton-seeds and oil. A cloth is held over the pot, and it is believed that the power of the goddess prevents the cloth from taking fire. If this should happen some great calamity would be portended. Rāthor Teli girls, whether married or unmarried, go with their heads bare, and a woman draws her cloth over her head for the first time when she begins to live in her husband’s house.