The Kacháris

by Sidney Endle

Priesthood

There is no authorised priestly caste among the Kacháris, nor are Brahmins ever employed in their religious ceremonies, these latter indeed being generally of a social, and even festive, rather than a religious character. In Kamrup, however, one of the recognised sub-tribes is, or was, known as “Brāhmarǒi,” a name which seems to point to Brahmins as having a certain standing in the Bådå community. All religious offices are now discharged by Deoris or Deodáis, who are usually men of a certain age and recognised social position in the village community; village elders in fact. The office is not hereditary, and any one versed in the usual forms of exorcism, &c., can discharge it. Another class of persons employed in religious ceremonies is known as the Ojhá or Ojhá-Burá, who is generally armed with shells, cowries, &c., by the manipulation of which he professes to be able to foretell prosperity or the reverse to those who consult him. These officials are supposed to be competent to deal with the ordinary ailments of village life by indicating the approximate method of propitiating the offended deity (modai), whose anger is held to be the cause of all the ills that flesh is heir to.

But in times of special emergency, e.g., plague, pestilence, famine, &c., the services of the “possessed” woman,[7] the Deodáni, are called into action for a special puja organised on a somewhat large scale. These gatherings are not very common, but when they do occur the order of the proceedings is something as follows, as occasionally witnessed by the writer. A piece of ground about fifteen or twenty yards square, usually on the bank of a running stream, is selected for the purpose. The surface of the soil is carefully removed, and a rude screen of cotton cloth some six or eight feet high erected on bamboos at the western side of the cleared ground. At the eastern side a slight earthwork embankment, some three or four inches high and about a foot broad is thrown up; and on this a number of figures, usually seven or nine, but always an odd number, bearing a rude resemblance to the outlines of the human form, are placed in an upright position. These figures are roughly made of jungle grass twisted together, and are about one foot in height. Before each figure is placed a layer of the plantain tree with its concave side upwards, and in this are deposited the heads of slaughtered goats, pigeons, chickens, with salt, sugar-cane, plantains, gazi (a mixture of rice and pulse), &c., the whole being freely sprinkled with blood and pounded rice flour (pitháguri). The Deodáni, a somewhat weird-looking figure, with dishevelled hair, and vermilion-stained forehead, wearing a long petticoat, dances up and down to and fro before these figures, keeping time roughly with the music of cymbals and tom-toms played by four or five men, who act as her assistants. The ceremony is a prolonged one, often extending over many hours: and the Deodáni, whose faculties are apparently quite absorbed in what she is doing and who seems for the time to be lifted above the world of time and sense, gradually works herself up to a state of excitement bordering on frenzy. At this stage, which is only slowly attained, a goat is brought forward and taken up before one of the figures above mentioned, when the Deodáni, with one stroke of the long sacrificial sword, known as the imfi and reserved exclusively for such purposes, severs the victim’s head from the body. Most of the blood is held to be offered in sacrifice to the madái, before whose emblem the animal has been slaughtered; but some part is said to be sprinkled on the persons of the assembled worshippers. It is at this climax of the puja, i.e., at the sacrificial slaughtering of the goat, that the Deodáni is supposed to become possessed of the knowledge she is in search of, i.e., the name of the offended deity who has brought about the plague, &c., and also the best method of propitiating his anger; which usually involves an offering of pigs, goats, &c., to the angered god, and the giving of a feast to the whole village community, the expense being defrayed by a general contribution.

1. Ceremonies Attending Birth.

In a Kachári village community there would seem to be no formally recognised midwives (dháis), any respectable and competent matron being at liberty to give attendance and assistance to the patient in such cases. In severing the umbilical cord no scissors, knife, or other implement of steel is ever used, nor is the severance effected at one stroke, but in a succession of slight cuts, seven such cuts being made in the case of a girl, and only five in that of a boy. The cutting instruments consist of thin hard strips of bamboo,[8] shaped roughly into the form of a knife; and a separate bamboo knife must be used in making each slight cut, seven such knives being thus made use of for a female child and five for a male. It is not unusual for one of the bystanders to give a name to the newly-born child at the severing of the umbilical cord. The good matron who officiates as midwife receives no money payment for her services, but on the mother becoming convalescent a feast is given at the parent’s expense, in which pork and other flesh meat is always present in abundance; and at this feast the officiating midwife is accorded the place of honour, as some recognition of the value of her kindly ministrations in her neighbour’s hour of trial and need.

For about a month or six weeks, (the period seems to vary within these limits) after giving birth to a child, the mother is held to be technically “unclean,” and is subjected to certain social and religious limitations; e.g., she may not approach the dhám or domestic altar commonly found inside a Kachári’s dwelling-house, and on which she is ordinarily in the habit of making offerings of eggs, chickens, &c., in times of trouble. This period of ceremonial uncleanness is usually terminated by the use of the water of peace (śánti-jal). The deori freely sprinkles the mother as well as the house and its contents with this holy water, after which she is fully at liberty to resume social intercourse with her neighbours.[9]

Naming.

There does not seem to be any special principle underlying the giving of names to children, nor do such names as a rule resemble those of their fathers. Like some of the lower castes among their Hindu neighbours, children often take the name of the day or the month in which they were born.[10] Hence we often find such names as Deobar, Mangal, Budhu, as also Mághuá, Pháguná (names of months), &c., in use among the Kacháris. Other names are obviously adopted from the Hindus, e.g., Gangá Rám, Sáti Rám, &c. Others, again, were probably given by the mother in infancy expressive of some peculiarity in the new-born child’s mental or physical temperament. Of this type, probably, is a very common name, “Khángkhoá,” i.e., the “voracious one,” the “great eater.”[11] Another illustration is the name Gáb-grá, i.e., the weeper, the crier, &c., &c. In short, any unusually prominent physical peculiarity is often seized upon to become the name by which the child is known throughout his whole after-life.