The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1. Robert Vane Russell
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of the Rājpūts and one or two other military castes. The small local or titular groups of ordinary Hindu castes are called ‘section,’ and the totemic groups of the primitive tribes ‘sept.’ But perhaps it is simpler to use the word ‘clan’ throughout according to the practice of Sir J.G. Frazer. The vernacular designations of the clans or sections are gotra, which originally meant a stall or cow-pen; khero, a village; dih, a village site; baink, a title; mul or mur, literally a root, hence an origin; and kul or kuri, a family. The sections called eponymous are named after Rishis or saints mentioned in the Vedas and other scriptures and are found among the Brāhmans and a few of the higher castes, such as Vasishta, Garga, Bhāradwāj, Vishvamitra, Kashyap and so on. A few Rājpūt clans are named after kings or heroes, as the Rāghuvansis from king Rāghu of Ajodhia and the Tilokchandi Bais from a famous king of that name. The titular class of names comprise names of offices supposed to have been held by the founder of the clan, or titles and names referring to a personal defect or quality, and nicknames. Instances of the former are Kotwār (village watchman), Chaudhri, Meher or Māhto (caste headman), Bhagat (saint), Thākuria and Rawat (lord or prince), Vaidya (physician); and of titular names and nicknames: Kuldip (lamp of the family), Mohjaria (one with a burnt mouth), Jāchak (beggar), Garkata (cut-throat), Bhātpagar (one serving on a pittance of boiled rice), Kangāli (poor), Chīkat (dirty), Petdukh (stomach-ache), Ghunnere (worm-eater) and so on. A special class of names are those of offices held at the caste feasts; thus the clans of the Chitrakathi caste are the Atak or Mānkari, who furnish the headman of the caste panchāyat or committee; the Bhojin who serve the food at marriages and other ceremonies; the Kākra who arrange for the lighting; the Gothārya who keep the provisions, and the Ghorerao (ghora, a horse) who have the duty of looking after the horses and bullock-carts of the caste-men who assemble. Similarly the five principal clans of the small Turi caste are named after the five sons of Singhbonga or the sun: the eldest son was called Mailuar and his descendants are the leaders or headmen of the caste; the descendants of the second son, Chardhagia, purify and readmit offenders to caste intercourse; those of the third son, Suremār, conduct the ceremonial shaving of such offenders, and those of the fourth son bring water for the ceremony and are called Tirkuār. The youngest brother, Hasdagia, is said to have committed some caste offence, and the four other brothers took the parts which are still played by their descendants in his ceremony of purification. In many cases exogamous clans are named after other castes or subcastes. Many low castes have adopted the names of the Rājpūt clans, either from simple vanity as people may take an aristocratic surname, or because they were in the service of Rājpūts, and have adopted the names of their masters or are partly descended from them. Other names of castes found among exogamous groups probably indicate that an ancestor belonging to that caste was taken into the one in which the group is found. The Bhaina tribe have clans named after the Dhobi, Ahīr, Gond, Māli and Panka castes. The members of such clans pay respect to any man belonging to the caste after which they are named and avoid picking a quarrel with him; they also worship the family gods of the caste.
Territorial names are very common, and are taken from that of some town or village in which the ancestor of the clan or the members of the clan themselves resided.90 The names are frequently distorted, and it seems probable that the majority of the large number of clan names for which no meaning can be discovered were those of villages. These unknown names are probably more numerous than the total of all those classes of names to which a meaning can be assigned.
49. Totemistic clans
The last class of exogamous divisions are those called totemistic, when the clan is named after a plant or animal or other natural object. These are almost universal among the non-Aryan or primitive tribes, but occur also in most Hindu castes, including some of the highest. The commonest totem names are those of the prominent animals, including several which are held sacred by the Hindus, as bāgh or nāhar, the tiger; bachās, the calf; morkuria, the peacock; kachhwāha or limuān, the tortoise; nāgas, the cobra; hasti, the elephant; bandar, the monkey; bhainsa, the buffalo; richharia, the bear; kuliha, the jackal; kukura, the dog; karsayāl, the deer; heran, the black-buck, and so on. The utmost variety of names is found, and numerous trees, as well as rice, kodon and other crops, salt, sandalwood, cucumber, pepper, and some household implements, such as the pestle and rolling-slab, serve as names of clans. Names which may be held to have a totemistic origin occur even in the highest castes. Thus among the names of eponymous Rishis or saints, Bhāradwāj means a lark, Kaushik may be from the kūsha grass, Agastya from the agasti flower, Kashyap from kachhap, a tortoise; Taittiri from tītar, a partridge, and so on. Similarly the origin of other Rishis is attributed to animals, as Rishishringa to an antelope, Mandavya to a frog, and Kanāda to an owl.91 An inferior Rājpūt clan, Meshbansi, signifies descendants of the sheep, while the name of the Baghel clan is derived from the tiger (bāgh), that of the Kachhwāha clan perhaps from kachhap, a tortoise, of the Haihaivansi from the horse, of the Nāgvansi from the cobra, and of the Tomara clan from tomar, a club. The Karan or writer caste of Orissa, similarly, have clans derived from the cobra, tortoise and calf, and most of the cultivating and other middle castes have clans with totemistic names. The usual characteristics of totemism, in its later and more common form at any rate, are that members of a clan regard themselves as related to, or descended from, the animal or tree from which the clan takes its name, and abstain from killing or eating it. This was perhaps not the original relation of the clan to its clan totem in the hunting stage, but it is the one commonly found in India, where the settled agricultural stage has long been reached. The Bhaina tribe have among their totems the cobra, tiger, leopard, vulture, hawk, monkey, wild dog, quail, black ant, and so on. Members of a clan will not injure the animal after which it is named, and if they see the corpse of the animal or hear of its death they throw away an earthen cooking-pot, and bathe and shave themselves as for one of the family. At a wedding the bride’s father makes an image in clay of the bird or animal of the groom’s sept and places it beside the marriage-post. The bridegroom worships the image, lighting a sacrificial fire before it, and offers to it the vermilion which he afterwards smears on the forehead of the bride. Women are often tattooed with representations of their totem animal, and men swear by it as their most sacred oath. A similar respect is paid to the inanimate objects after which certain septs are named. Thus members of the Gawad or cowdung clan will not burn cowdung cakes for fuel; and those of the Mircha clan do not use chillies. One clan is named after the sun, and when an eclipse occurs they perform the same formal rites of mourning as others do on the death of their totem animal. The Bāghani clan of Majhwārs, named after the tiger, think that a tiger will not attack any member of their clan unless he has committed an offence entailing temporary excommunication from caste. Until this offence has been expiated his relationship with the tiger as head of the clan is in abeyance, and the tiger will eat him as he would any other stranger. If a tiger meets a member of the clan who is free from sin, he will run away. Members of the Khoba or peg clan will not make a peg nor drive one into the ground. Those of the Dūmar or fig-tree clan say that their first ancestor was born under this tree. They consider the tree to be sacred and never eat its fruit, and worship it once a year. Sometimes the members of the clan do not revere the object after which it is named but some other important animal or plant. Thus the Markām clan of Gonds, named after the mango-tree, venerate the tortoise and do not kill it. The Kathotia clan of Kols is named after kathota, a bowl, but they revere the tiger. Bāgheshwar Deo, the tiger-god, resides on a little platform in their verandas. They may not join in a tiger-beat nor sit up for a tiger over a kill. In the latter case they think that the tiger would not come and would be deprived of his food, and all the members of their family would get ill. The Katharia clan take their name from kathri, a mattress. A member of this sept must never have a mattress in his house, nor wear clothes sewn in crosspieces as mattresses are sewn. The name of the Mudia or Mudmudia clan is said to mean shaven head, but they apparently revere the white kumhra or gourd, perhaps because it has some resemblance to a shaven head. They give a white gourd to a woman on the day after she has borne a child, and her family then do not eat this vegetable for three years. The Kumraya sept revere the brown kumhra or gourd. They grow this vegetable on the thatch of their house-roof
See article Kurmi, appendix, for some instances of territorial names.
Wilson’s