Appearance and manners. 23. With the partial disappearance of the Banjâra carrier before our roads and railways a most picturesque element is being lost in the generally squalid life of our bâzârs. No one who sees them in their original state can help being struck by their resemblance in figure and dress to some of the Western gypsies. To Dr. Ball[75] a camp of Labânas immediately recalled to his memory the Zingari of [[165]]the lower Danube and Wallachia. And he was particularly impressed by the peculiar minor key of the music which is so characteristic of these people. In these Provinces the women are skilled in a peculiar form of woollen embroidery, and pride themselves on their bright coloured boddices (choli) and jackets (angi) ornamented in this way. Some wear a sort of horn made of wood in their hair, over which the sheet (châdar) is draped in a very peculiar and graceful fashion. The women, who are much taller and more robust than the people among whom they live, stride along the roads in a particularly bold and independent way. But their characteristic dress is seen to most advantage in their seats in the Dakkhin. Mr. Mullaly[76] writes of the women as “comely and above the average height of the women of this country. They are easily distinguished by their dress and a profusion of jewellery they wear. Their costume is the gown (lahnga) of khârua cloth, red or green, with a quantity of embroidery. The boddice, with embroidery on the front and on the shoulders, covers the bosom, and is tied by variegated cords at the back, the ends of the cords being ornamented with cowries and beads; a covering cloth of khârua cloth, with embroidery, is fastened in at the waist, and hangs at the side with a quantity of tassels, and strings of cowries. Their jewels are very numerous, and include strings of beads of ten or twenty rows with a cowrie as a pendant threaded on horse hair, a silver necklace (hansli), a sign of marriage. They wear brass or horn bracelets, ten or twelve in number, extending to the elbow on either arm, with a piece of embroidered silk, one inch wide, tied to the right wrist. Anklets of ivory or bone are only worn by the married women; they are removed on the death of the husband. Silk embroidery adorned with tassels and cowries is also worn as an anklet by all women. Their other jewels are a nose ornament, a silver pendant from the upper part of the ear, attached to a silver chain which hangs to the shoulder, and a profusion of silver, brass, and lead rings. Their hair is, in the case of unmarried women, unadorned, brought up and tied in a knot at the top of the head; with married women it is fastened in like manner with a cowrie or a brass button, and heavy pendants are fastened to the temple. The latter is an essential sign of marriage, and its absence is a sign of widowhood.” There is no doubt that they have a patois of [[166]]their own; but it has as yet not been fully collected. Dr. Ball says that he was “informed by a Russian Prince, who travelled in India in 1874, that one of his companions, a Hungarian nobleman, found himself able to converse with the Banjâras of Central India in consequence of his knowledge of the Zingari language.” He also states that “the Dîwân of Kudibuga told me that the strong-minded Banjâra women are in the habit of inflicting severe chastisement on their husbands with their very large sticks (bari bari lâthi), a custom which also prevails in the Nicobar Islands.”

Distribution of Banjâras according to the Census of 1891.

District. Chauhân. Bahrûp. Guâr. Jâdon. Panwâr. Râthaur. Tunwar. Others. Muhammadans. Total.
Dehra Dûn 2 … … … … … … 936 939 1,877
Sahâranpur 5781,865 … … 178 528 10 3,836 3,49410,489
Muzaffarnagar 380 112 … 53 769 637107 1,708 88 3,854
Meerut … … … … … 98… 253 353 704
Bulandshahr 356 … … 1 1 95… 27 83 563
Aligarh 102 … 123 2 501,146363 844 17 2,647
Mathura 166 … 1 21 78 205 2 108 770 1,351
Agra 140 … 6347 92 319… 225 207 1,336
Farrukhâbâd 215 … … 23 50 31 3 353 170 875
Mainpuri … … … 94 … 281… 311 31 717
Etâwah 550 … 1352 204 538… 763 28 2,436
Etah 393 … 2 43 166 590 21 617 50 1,882
Bareilly … … 67… … … … … 7,915 7,982
Bijnor … … 154… 335 966… 1,126 2,606 5,187
Budâun … … … … … … … … 13 13
Morâdâbâd … … 189… … … … 375 2,598 3,162
Shâhjahânpur … … 1… 8 53 3 45 149 259
Pilibhît 99 31 459 23 2701,343… 1,664 5,506 9,395
Cawnpur 25 … 124 2 112 154… 11 2 430
Allahâbâd … … … … … … … 3 … 3
Jhânsi … … … … … … … 16 … 16
Ghâzipur … … … … … … … … 1 1[[167]]
Ballia … … … … … … … 10 … 10
Gorakhpur 6 … 10… … … … 63 36 115
Basti 3 68 … … … 39… 1 48 159
Tarâi … … 36… … 190 3 2,747 91138,887
Lucknow … … … … … … … 34 … 34
Unâo … … … … … … … … 142 142
Râê Bareli … … … … … … … 2 42 44
Sîtapur 16 … 2… … … … 27 199 244
Hardoi … … … … … … … … 25 25
Kheri 40 102 918… 4651,273… 1,422 407 4,627
Faizâbâd … … … … … … … 8 … 8
Gonda … … … … … … … 5 43 48
Bahrâich 64 … 56… 685 446 6 934 80 2,271
Partâbgarh 33 … … … … 2… … … 35
Total 3,1982,1782,1499613,4638,93451818,47426,95366,828

Bânsphor.[77]—(Bâns, “bamboo,” phorna, “to split”).—A sub-caste of Doms who may be considered separately as they have been separately enumerated at the last Census. Those in Mirzapur represent themselves to be immigrants from a place called Bisurpur or Birsupur in the Native State of Panna, which, according to some, is identical with Birsinhpur, a place north-west of the town of Rîwa. In Gorakhpur they call themselves Gharbâri, or “settled” Doms, in contradistinction to the Magahiya, or vagrant branch of the tribe. Their immigration from the west is said in Mirzapur to have commenced some four generations ago and still continues. They profess to undertake occasional pilgrimages to their old settlement to worship a local Mahâdeva. In Gorakhpur they have a story that they are the descendants of one Supach Bhagat, who was a votary of Râmchandra. He had two wives, Mân Devi and Pân [[168]]Devi, the first of whom was the ancestress of the Bânsphors. They freely, like other Doms, admit outsiders into the caste, and this is generally the result of an intrigue with one of their women. The applicant for admission has to give a feast of rice, pulse, pork, and spirits to the brotherhood, and when he has drunk with them he is admitted to full caste rights.

Internal organization. 2. The sub-caste being a purely occupational offshoot from the original Dom tribe, their internal organization is rather vague. Thus at the last Census they were enumerated under one main sub-caste, the Dhânuk, who, though possibly allied to the Dom race, are generally treated as distinct, and the Benbansi of Gonda. In Bhâgalpur, according to Mr. Risley,[78] they have a number of exogamous sections (pangat); but other Bânsphors on the Nepâl frontier regulate their marriages by local sections (dih); while others in the town of Bhâgalpur have neither pangat nor dih. In Mirzapur they enumerate eight exogamous sections: Mahâwati, Chamkel, Gausel, Samudra, Nahar, Kalai, Magariha, and Saraiha; and they reinforce the rule of section exogamy by prohibiting marriages with the daughter of the maternal uncle, of their father’s sister, and of their own sister; also they do not intermarry with a family in which one of these relations marries until at least one or two generations have passed. Similarly, in Hardoi, where they have no sub-castes or sections, they are reported to prohibit marriage with first cousins on both the father’s and mother’s sides. In Gorakhpur they name, like so many castes of this social grade, seven endogamous sub-castes: Bânsphor; Mangta, or “begging” Doms; Dharkâr, which has been treated as a separate caste; Nâtak, or dancers; Tasiha; Halâlkhor, “one to whom all food is lawful;” and Kûnchbandhiya, or makers of the brushes constructed out of the roots of the kans grass used by weavers for cleaning the thread.

Tribal Council. 3. The Bânsphors on the whole agree with the customs of the Doms and Dharkârs, of whom an account has been separately given; but, as might be expected from their living a more settled life than the vagrant Doms, they are more completely Hinduised. Their caste council, under a hereditary president (Chaudhari), is a very powerful and influential body, the members of which are, however, only a sort of assessors to the [[169]]president, who, after consultation with them, gives any orders he pleases. If a man is caught in an intrigue with a Dhobin or Domin he is permanently excommunicated, and the same rule applies to a woman detected in an amour with a man of either of these castes. Intrigues with persons of more respectable castes involve expulsion only until the necessary feasts of expiation are given to the brethren. In addition to the feast the offender has always, in Mirzapur, to pay a cash fine of one-and-a-quarter rupees. Monogamy is the rule, but there is no restriction against a man having as many wives as he can marry and support. Concubinage with a woman of another caste is prohibited, and the caste look on the very idea of polyandry with such horror that it is more than doubtful if it could ever have been a tribal institution. If an unmarried girl is detected in an intrigue with a clansman she is married to him by order of the council, and her father has to give a dinner to the brethren. When a married woman offends in this way, both her husband and father have to give a feast; but, as among all these tribes, inter-tribal infidelity is lightly regarded; a woman is not condemned except on the actual evidence of eye-witnesses.

Marriage rules. 4. Marriage takes place usually in infancy; and, in Mirzapur, if a girl is not married by the time she comes to puberty, her parents are put out of caste. Marriages are arranged by the brother-in-law of the boy’s father, and the bride-price is fixed in Mirzapur by tribal custom at four-and-a-quarter rupees, four annas being added as siwâi for good luck. If a wife habitually commit adultery, eat with a low-caste person, or give her husband food in an impure dish, she is put away with the sanction of the council. A woman is allowed to leave her husband only if he be put out of caste. It is said, in Mirzapur, that a divorced wife cannot marry again. This is true, so far as that, of course, she cannot go through the regular service which is restricted to virgin brides; but she can live with a man by the sagâi form, and the connection, after it has been ratified by a feast, is binding, and her children are legitimate. Widows are married by the sagâi, or dharauna form, generally to a widower, and their children are recognised as heirs. The only ceremony is that the husband gives the woman a new suit of clothes, which are put on her inside the house at night, in secret, and he then eats with the family of his father-in-law. Next day he takes his bride home, and feeds his clansmen, on which the union is recognised. The levirate prevails under the usual [[170]]restrictions. Even if a widow be taken over by the younger brother, her children by the first marriage inherit the estate of their father. A man may adopt his brother’s, or daughter’s, not his sister’s, son. A woman can adopt if there be no one in her husband’s family to support her.

Birth ceremonies. 5. In their birth ceremonies the Bânsphors agree with the Dharkârs. The mother, during her confinement is, in Mirzapur, attended by a woman of the Basor caste. There is no rite performed on the sixth day, and the mother is impure till the twelfth day (barahi). They have the usual dread of the menstrual and parturition impurity. On the twelfth day a hog is sacrificed to the deceased ancestors of the family, and the brethren eat the flesh boiled with rice. The woman has to worship the well from which water is drawn for the use of the family by walking five times round it in the course of the sun and marking it with red lead. A man does not cohabit with his wife for two months after her confinement. The only approach to a puberty ceremony is the ear-boring, which takes place at the age of three or five, but in some cases is delayed to a later date, and it marks an approach to Hinduism, that they ask the Pandit to fix a lucky time for its performance. From that time the child is regarded as a member of the tribe and must conform to caste usages regarding food.

Marriage. 6. In the same way the Pandit draws auspices (ganana ganna) of marriages. The betrothal is settled by the father of the boy exchanging with the girl’s father a leaf platter full of liquor in which a rupee is placed, and the brother-in-law of the bridegroom ties a turban on the head of the bride’s father. The marriage ceremony resembles that of Dharkârs (q.v.). It is preceded by the matmangara ceremony. The earth is dug by the bridegroom’s mother, who offers a burnt sacrifice (homa) to the village deities (dih). In the centre of the marriage shed (mânro) is fixed up a branch of the fig tree (gûlar) and the cotton tree (semal). The usual anointing precedes the marriage. The bride’s nails are solemnly cut (nahchhu) and her feet are coloured with lac dye (mahâwar). The usual wave ceremony (parachhan) is done with a pestle (mûsar) and a water jar (kalsa). At the bride’s door her father makes a mark (tîka) on the forehead of the bridegroom with rice and curds. The bride’s father washes the feet of the bride and bridegroom in a square in the court-yard. They sit facing east, and the bride’s father worships the fig tree branch, and [[171]]then, in imitation of Hindus, Gauri and Ganesa. Then holding some kusa grass in his hand he formally gives away the bride (kanyâdâna). The clothes of the pair are knotted together, and they walk five times round the fig and cotton branches, while at each revolution the girl’s brother sprinkles a little parched rice into a sieve which the bridegroom holds. This he scatters on the ground, and the ceremony ends by the bridegroom marking the girl’s head with red lead, which is the binding portion of the ceremony. Then they go into the retiring room (kohabar), where jokes are played on the bridegroom, and he receives a present from his mother-in-law. As is usual with these tribes they have the ceremony of plunging the wedding jars (kalsa dubâna) into water a day or two after the wedding.

Death ceremonies. 7. The dead are cremated, except young children or those who die of epidemic disease, whose bodies are thrown into a river or buried. After the cremation they chew leaves of the nîm tree as a mark of mourning. The death pollution lasts ten days, during which the mourner every night lays out a platter of food on the road by which the corpse was removed for its use. On the tenth day the chief mourner throws five lumps (pinda) of rice boiled in milk (khîr) into water in the name of the dead, and, on returning home, sacrifices a hog in the name of the deceased, which is boiled with rice and eaten by the clansmen. No Brâhmans are employed at any of these ceremonies. In the festival of the dead (pitripaksha) in Kuâr they pour off water on the ground every day for fifteen days in honour of deceased ancestors; and on the ninth day they offer cakes (pûri), sweet rice (bakhîr), and pork, to their ancestors. These are laid out in the court-yard for their use. On the fifteenth day they offer rice, pulse, bread, and pork, if obtainable, in the same way. Any senior member of the family presents the offering.