14. The Teli an unlucky caste
The Teli is considered a caste of bad omen. The proverb says, ‘God protect me from a Teli, a Chamār and a Dhobi’; and the Teli is considered the most unlucky of the three. He is also talkative: ‘Where there is a Teli there is sure to be contention.’ The Teli is thought to be very close-fisted, but occasionally his cunning overreaches itself: ‘The Teli counts every drop of oil as it issues from the press, but sometimes he upsets the whole pot.’ The reason given for his being unlucky is his practice of harnessing and blindfolding bullocks already mentioned, and also that he presses urad[7] a black-coloured pulse, the oil from which is offered to the unlucky planet Saturn on Saturdays. ‘Teli ka bail,’ or ‘A Teli’s bullock,’ is a proverbial expression for a man who has to slave very hard for small pay.[8] The Teli is believed to have magical powers. A good magician in search of an attendant spirit will, it is said, prefer to raise the corpse of a Teli who died on a Tuesday. He proceeds to the burning-ghāt with chickens, eggs, some vermilion and red cloth. He seats himself near to where the corpse was burnt, and after repeating some spells offers up the chickens and eggs and breaks the cocoanut. Then it is believed that the corpse will gradually rise and take shape and be at the magician’s service so long as the latter may desire. The following prescription is given for a love-charm: take the skull of a Teli’s wife and cook some rice in it under a babūl[9] tree on a Sunday. This if given to a girl to eat will make her fall in love with him who gives it to her.
15. Occupation. Oil-pressing
The Teli’s oil-press is a very primitive affair. It consists of a hollowed tree-trunk in which a post is placed with rounded lower end. The top of this projects perhaps three feet above the hollow trunk and is secured by two pieces of wood to a horizontal bar, one end of which presses against the trunk, while the bullock is harnessed to the outer end. The yoke-bar hangs about a foot from the ground, the inner end resting in a groove of the trunk, while the outer is supported by the poles connecting it with the churning-post. From the top of this latter a rope is also tied to the bullock’s horn to keep the animal in position. The press is usually set up inside a shed, and it is said that if the bullock were not blindfolded it would quickly become too giddy to work. The bullock drags the yoke-bar round the trunk and this gives a circular movement to the top of the churning-post, causing the lower end of the latter to move as on a pivot inside the trunk. The friction thus produced crushes the oil-seed, and the oil trickles out through a hole in the lower part of the trunk. The oil of ramtilli or jagni is commonly burnt for lighting in villages, and also that of the mahua-seed. Linseed-oil is generally exported, but if used at home it is mainly as an illuminant. It is mixed with food by the Marātha castes but not in northern India. All the vegetable oils are rapidly being supplanted by kerosene, even in villages; but the inferior quality generally purchased, burnt as it is in small open saucers, gives out a great deal of smoke and is said to be very injurious to the eyesight, and students especially sustain permanent injury to the sight by working with these lamps. This want is, however, being met, and cheap lamp-burners can be bought in Bombay for about twelve annas. Owing to their having until recently supplied the only means of illumination the Telis sometimes call themselves Dīpabans, or ‘Sons of the lamp.’ Tilli or sesamum is called sweet oil; it is much eaten by Brāhmans and others in the Marātha country, and is always used for rubbing on the hair and body. On the festivals of Diwāli and Til Sankrānt all Hindus rub sesamum oil on their bodies; otherwise they put it on their hair once or twice a week, and on their bodies if they get a chill, or as a protective against cold twice or thrice a month in the winter. The Uriya castes rub oil on the body if they can afford it every day after bathing and say that it keeps off malaria. Castor-oil is used as a medicine, and by some people even as ordinary food. It is also a good lubricant, being applied to cart-wheels and machinery. Other oils mentioned by Mr. Crooke are poppy-seed, mustard, cocoanut and safflower, and those prepared from almond and the berries of the nīm[10] tree. The Teli’s occupation is a dirty one, his house being filled with the refuse of oil and oil-seed, and Mr. Gordon notes that leprosy is very prevalent in the caste.[11]
16. Trade and agriculture
The Telis are a very enterprising caste, and the great bulk of them have abandoned their traditional occupation and taken to others which are more profitable and respectable. In their trade, like that of the Kalār, cash payment by barter must have been substituted for customary annual contributions at an early period, and hence they learnt to keep accounts when their customers were ignorant of this accomplishment. The knowledge has stood them in good stead. Many of them have become moneylenders in a small way, and by this means have acquired villages. In the Raipur and Bilāspur Districts they own more than 200 villages and 700 in the Central Provinces as a whole. They are also shopkeepers and petty traders, travelling about with pack-bullocks like the Banjāras. Mr. A. K. Smith notes that formerly the Teli hired Banjāras to carry his goods through the jungle, as he would have been killed by them if he had ventured to do so himself. But now he travels with his own bullocks. Even in Mughal times Mr. Smith states Telis occasionally rose to important positions; Kāwaji Teli was sutler to the Imperial army, and obtained from the Emperor Jahāngīr a grant of Ashti in Wardha and an order that no one should plant betel-vine gardens in Ashti without his permission. This rule is still observed and any one wishing to have a betel-vine garden makes a present to the patel. Krishna Kānta Nandi or Kānta Bābu, the Banyan of Warren Hastings, was a Teli by caste and did much to raise their position among the Hindus.[12]
17. Teli beneficence
Colonel Tod gives instances in Udaipur of works of beneficence executed by Telis. “The Teli-ki-Sarai or oilman’s caravanserai is not conspicuous for magnitude; but it is remarkable not merely for its utility but even for its elegance of design. The Teli-ka-Pūl or Oilman’s Bridge at Nūrabād is a magnificent memorial of the trade and deserves preservation. These Telis perambulate the country with skins of oil on a bullock and from hard-earned pence erect the structures which bear their name.”[13] Similarly the temple of Vishnu at Rājim is said to be named after one Rājan Telin, who discovered the image lying abandoned by the roadside. She placed her skin of oil on it to rest herself and on that day her oil never decreased, and when she had finished selling in the market she had all her oil as well as the money. Her husband suspected her of evil practices, but, when next day her mother-in-law laid a skinful of oil on the image and the same thing happened, it was seen that the god had made himself manifest to her, and a temple was built and named after her and the image enshrined in it. Similarly the image of Mahādeo at Pīthampur in Bilāspur was seen buried by a Teli in a dream, and he dug it up and made a shrine to it and was cured of dysentery. So an annual fair is held and many people go there to be healed of their diseases.
[1] This article is based on papers by Mr. Prem Nārāyan, Extra Assistant Commissioner, Chānda; Mr. Mīr Pacha, Tahsīldār, Seoni; Mr. Chintāman Rao, Tahsīldār, Chanda; and Mr. K.G. Vaidya, Chānda.