Panjab Castes: 06-Gotr and tribal organisation
This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. |
The Brahminical gotras
I have said that among the priestly and mercantile castes we find a set of divisions corresponding with the true tribal divisions of the landowning classes, which runs through the great geographical or social sections which I have described above. These divisions are, among the Khatris and Aroras, in all probability real tribes denoting common descent, or at any rate special association of some sort, at an earlier stage in the history of the caste, of the ancestors of all those who now bear the same tribal name. Among the Brahmans and Banyas these divisions are known as gotras, and it is not so certain that their origin, among the Banyas at least, is tribal. The word gotra, more commonly known under the corrupted form of got, means a family or lineage, the descendants from a common ancestor, and it also means a flock, those who shelter within a common fold. The Brahmans say that their gotras are named after the great Hindu Rishis, though it does not clearly appear whether the members of each gotra claim descent from the Rishi whose name it bears as from a carnal or as from a spiritual father. It is curious that the names of many of the founders of these gotras occur among the ancient genealogies of the prehistoric Rajput dynasties, the Rajas in question being not merely name sakes of, but distinctly stated to be the actual founders of the gotra j and it would be strange if inquiry were to show that the priestly classes, like the menials just discussed, own their tribal divisions to the great families to whom their ancestors were attached. At any rate, whatever their origin, the Brahminical gotras have among the Brahmans become absolutely heredi tary ; and every Brahman, whether Gaur, Sursut, Dalvaut, or otherwise belongs to some one or other of these gotras. Thus, taking these great sections as tribes, the gotra is wider than the tribe ; and while new tribes and clans can be and are constantly being formed, no new go'ra is possible.
For a curious inbtauce of classification of Erabniaus into tribes by tbe couiuiand of a Rajput ruler, see the quotation from Mr. Barnes given on page 179. [Census Report.]
Is it possible that the gotra is a relic of descent tuvongli the female liuo, like the corre spoiuVmg pba3uomenon among the Australian and North American Indians ? [Census Report.] But the Brahminical gotra extends far beyond the body of Brahmans; for the theory of the Hindu religion is that every Hindu, whatever be his caste, belongs to some one or other of them. The gotra thus defined is used only at marriage, on the occasion of snakalpa and in similar formal cere monies; and the great majority of the Hindu peasantry do not so much as know that they have a gotra at all, much less what it is. But all the stricter Hindu castes, such as the Banyas and Khatris and Aroras, know and recognize their gotra. Indeed the Banyas have, so far as I know, no tribal divisions within the great sections of Agarwal, Oswal and the like, except these Brahminical goh-as. Thus the question suggests itself whether the universal currency of the same set of gotras throughout the whole Brahman caste, and their adoption by the Banyas, is not due to a wish to conform with the rule of Hinduism just enunciated, rather than to any real community of descent denoted by a common gotra. In any case these gotras are of singularly little importance. Except to the priests and mercliants and to some of the stricter and more educated classes they menu little or nothing; while although to those priests and merchants they do stand in some degree in the place of tribal divisions, yet as they are in no way localised their significance is almost wholly religions, and the divisions which are really important among these castes are what I have calhxl the great sections. It matters little or nothing whether a Brahman, a Banya, or an Arora is of the Gautama or of the Bharadwaj gotra j what we really want to know is whether he is Gaur or Sarsut, Agarwal or Oswal, Uttaradhi or Dakhani. The horrible trouble and confusion which resulted in the Census from the fact that the peasantry of the eastern Pan jab call their tribes by the same word got as is commonly used for the Braminical gotra, will be noticed presently.
Tribal divisions of women
A curious question arose in the record of tribes in the Census schedules; namely, whether a woman changed her fathers tribal name for that of her husband on marriage. There is no doubt whatever that the Brahminical gotra follows that of the husband ; and the more educated enumerators, knowing this, often objected to record the got or tribe of the wife as different from that of the husband. I asked some of my friends to make enquiries as to the custom in various parts of the Province, but in many cases the got and gotra have evidently been confused in their investigations and rejdies. But on the whole the result seems to be as follows. With Brahmans, Banyas, Khatris, Kayaths, and Aroras the womans got follows that of her husband. But this is almost certainly the Brahminical gotra. In some of the eases it must be so, as the sec tions do not intermarry, and there is nothing else to change. Among the Khatris it would be interesting to know whether a Kapur woman marrying a Mahra man would be considered a Kapur or a Mahra. Throughout the Western Plains Hindus change the clan; but here again they almost all belong to the castes mentioned above. In the hills and the sub-montane tracts the tribe is certainly changed ; for in the lower hills there is a formal ceremony called got kunbla the tribal trencher,^' at which the women of the tribe eat with the bride and thus admit her to the community. In the eastern districts the tribe is as containly not changed at marriage, nor does a boy change it on adoption. It is born and dies unaltered with both man and woman. In Sirsa it does not change, for a man always speaks of his wife by her tribal and not by her personal name; and the same custom obtains among the Dehli Gujars. On the other hand in Firozpur, which adjoins Sirsa, the custom of got kunala is said to obtain. Among the Musalmans of the west the tribe does not appear to change by marriage ; but if the wife is of standing which is nearly but not quite equal to that of her husband, she is often ad dressed by courtesy as belonging to the tribe of the latter. The point is practi cally important in this way. The diversity of custom which prevails, added to the interference of the educated enumerator, makes the record of tribal divisions for women of exceedingly uncertain value ; and it would have been better to tabulate the males only for the several tribes and clans. At a future Census the enumerator should be directed to record the clan or tribe of a married woman as stated by her husband, whether the same as his own or different.
The tribal organisation of the people
An extensive collection of facts bearing upon the tribal organisation of the people, together with a most valuable dissertation on the general subject, will be found in Vol. U of Mr. Tupper's treatise on Tanjab Customary Law. The Panjab affords a pecu liarly complete series of stages between the purely tribal organisation of the Pathan or Biloch of the frontier hills and the village communities of the Jamna districts. The territorial distribution of the frontier tribes in the fastnesses of their native mountains is strictly trilal. Each clan of each tribe has a tract allotted to it ; and within that tract the families or small groups of nearly related families either lead a semi-nomad life, or inhabit mde villages round which lie the fields which they cultivate and the rough irrigation works which they have constructed. In these they have property, but beyond them there are no boundaries in the common pasture lands of the clan. Where the tribe or clan has occupied a tract within our border in sufficient numbers to under take its cultivation, the distribution differs little from that obtaining beyond the border. We have indeed laid down boundaries which mark off areas held by groups of families ; but these boundaries are often purely artificial, and include hamlets which are united by no common tie and separated from their neigh bours by no line of demarcation save one based upon administrative conveni ence. When however the tribe conquered rather than occupied the tract, and its cultivation is still in the hands of the people whom they subjugated, we find that they did almost exactly what we have done in the case last described. They drew arbitrary boundaries which divided out the land into great blocks or village areas, and each clan or section of a clan took one of these blocks as its share, left the cultivating population scattered in small hamlets over the fields, and themselves occupied central villages of some strength and size. These two types are found more or less prevailing through out the Western Plains and Salt-range Tract. But in the great grazing groimds we find, perhaps even more commonly than either of these, a third type which is not based upon any sort of tribal organisation. A miscellaneous collection of cultivators have broken up the land and so acquired rights in it, or have been settled by capitalists who acquired grants of land on condition of bringing it under cultivation. This form of settlement was especially encom-aged under Sikh rule ; when the cardinal principle of administration was to crush the gentry, to encourage cultivation, and to take so much from the actual cultivator as to leave nothing for the landlord.
In the east of the Province we find the village community about which so much has been written ; and nowhere perhaps in more vigorous per fection than in the south-eastern districts. But it is a great mistake to suppose that the village community wholly supersedes tribal organisation. The tribal maps of the Panjdb when published will show how very generally tribes hold compact territories , even where the village communities are strongest. Where this is the case the villages of the tribe constitute one or | more thapas, or tribal groups of village communities held together by feudal / ties and by the fact or fiction of common ancestry. Under the Mughals the revenue administration used to be based upon these thapas, the revenue being assessed upon the group of villages as a whole, and being distributed among them by the headmen of the collective villages under the presidency of the headman of the parent village. So too, till our time the definite bound aries which now separate each village from its neighbours were very indefi nitely marked even in the cultivated tracts,, as is proved by the manner in which they zig-zag in and out among the fields ; while in the common pastures they were probably almost unknown, as to this day the cattle of neighbouring villages belonging to the same tribe graze in common without reference to boundaries. The following description of the thapa organisation is taken from my settlement report of Karnal. The vigorous organisation of the priestly and menial castes, based upon the tribal organisation of their clients and masters, is especially interesting with reference to the remarks made in sections 351-52. It would be interesting to know whether the same holds good with the mercantile castes.
A tribal community having obtained possession of a tract, in course of time it would be inconvenient for them all the live together, and a part of the community would found a new village, always on the edge of a drainage line from which their tanks would be filled. This pro cess would be repeated till the tract became dotted over with villages, all springing originally from one parent village. The people describe the facts by saying that of several brothers one settled in one village and one in another ; but this no doubt means that the parts of the com munity that migrated con<i<ted of integral families or groups of families descended in one common branch from the ancestor. In this way were divided the many villages known by the same name, with the addition of the words k dnn and khurd ^big and little). This by no means implies that kalau is larger than khurd, but only that the elder branch settled in kalan.
The group of villages so bound together by common descent form a thapa, and are con nected by sub-feudal ties which are still recognized, the village occupied by the descendants of the common ancestor in the clde t line being, however small or reduced in circumstances, still acknowledged as the head. To this day when a headman dies, the other villages of the thapa assemble to instal his heir, and the turban of the parent village is first tied on his head. When Brabmans and the brotherhood are fed on the occasion of deaths, &c., it is from the thapa villages that they are collected; and the Brabmans of the head village are fed first, and receive '• double fees. So among the menial castes, who still retain an internal organization of far greater vitality than the higher ca-tes liow po=se s, the representative of the head village is always the foreman of the caste jury which is assembled from the t'^ apa villages to hear and decide disputes. '•' In old days the subordinate villages used to pay some small feudal lees to the head village on the day of the great Diwali. The head village is still called ' the great village,' the ' turban ' village, ' ' the village of origin,' or ' the ftka village,' tika being the sign of authority formally impressed in old days on the forehead of the heir of a deceased leader in the presence of the assembled thapa. In one case a village told me that it had changed its thapa because there were so many Brabmans in its original thapa that it found it expensive to feed them. I spoke to the original tika village about it, and they said that no village could change its thapa, and quoted the proverb' ' A son may forget his sonship ; but not ' a mother her motherhood.'
It is curious to note how the fiction of common descent is preserved when strangers are admitted into these tribal groups or village communities. The stranger who receives by gift a share of another's land is called a bhumbhdi or
- ' earth brother ; and if a landowner of a tribe other than that of the
original owners is asked how he acquired property in the village, his invariable answer is they settled me as a brother.^'
