Ojha
This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly |
From The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India
By R. V. Russell
Of The Indian Civil Service
Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces
Assisted By Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner
Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.
NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh.
NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from the original book. Therefore, footnotes have got inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot these footnotes gone astray might like to shift them to their correct place.
Ojha
The community of soothsayers and minstrels of the Gonds. The Ojhas may now be considered a distinct subtribe, as they are looked down upon by the Gonds and marry among themselves. They derive their name from the word ojh, meaning ' entrail,' their original duty having been, like that of the Roman augurs, to examine the entrails of the victim immediately after it had been slain as an offering to the gods. In 191 1 the Ojhas numbered about 5000 persons distributed over all Districts of the Central Provinces.
At present the bulk of the community subsist by beggary. The word Ojha is of Sanskrit and not of Gond origin and is applied by the Hindus to the seers or magicians of several of the primitive tribes, while there is also a class of Ojha Brahmans who practise magic and divination.
The Gond Ojhas, who are the subject of this article, originally served the Gonds and begged from them alone, but in some parts of the western Satpuras they are also the minstrels of the Korkus. Those who beg from the Korkus play on a kind of drum called dhiiJtk, while the Gond Ojhas use the kingri or lyre. Some of them also catch birds and are therefore known as Moghia. Mr. Hislop ^ remarks of them: "The Ojhas follow the two occupations of bard and fowler.
They lead a wandering life and when passing through villages they sing from house to house the praises of their heroes, dancing with castanets in their hands, bells at their ankles and long feathers of jungle birds in their turbans. They sell live ' Papets relating to the Aboriginal Tribes of the C.P., p. 6.
quails and the skins of a species of Buceros named Dhanchiria
- these are used for makinc^ caps and for hanc^ing up
in houses in order to secure wealth {dha)/), while the thighbones of the same bird vv^hcn fastened round the waists of children are deemed an infallible preservative against the assaults of devils and other such calamities.
Their wives tattoo the arms of Mindu and Gond women. Among them there is a subdivision known as the Mana Ojhas, who rank higher than the others. Laying claim to unusual sanctity, they refuse to eat with any one, Gonds, Rajputs or even Brahmans, and devote themselves to the manufacture of rings and bells which are in request among their own race, and even of lingas (phallic emblems) and 7iandts (bull images), which they sell to all ranks of the Hindu community.
Their wives are distinguished by wearing the cloth of the upper part of the body over the right shoulder, whereas those of the common Ojhas and of all the other Gonds wear it over the left." Mr. Tawney wrote of the Ojhas as follows : ^ " The Ojha women do not dance. It is only men who do so, and when thus engaged they put on special attire and wear anklets with bells. The Ojhas like the Gonds are divided into six or seven god gots (classes or septs), and those with the same number of gods cannot intermarry. They worship at the same Deokhala (god's threshing-floor) as the Gonds, but being regarded as an inferior caste they are not allowed so near the sacred presence. Like the Gonds they incorporate the spirits of the dead wath the gods, but their manner of doing so is somewhat different, as they make an image of brass to represent the soul of the deceased and keep this with the household gods. As with the Gonds, if a household god makes himself too objectionable he is quietly buried to keep him out of mischief and a new god is introduced into the family.
The latter should properly bear the same name as his degraded predecessor, but very often does not. The Ojhas are too poor to indulge in the luxury of burning their deceased friends and therefore invariably bury them." The customs of the Ojhas resemble those of the Gonds. ^ Note by Mr. Tawney as Deputy in Central Provinces Census Report of Commissioner of Chhindwara, quoted 1S81 (Mr. Diysdale).
They take the bride to the bridegroom's house to be married, and a widow among them is expected, though not obliged, to wed her late husband's younger brother. They eat the flesh of fowls, pigs, and even oxen, but abstain from that of monkeys, crocodiles and jackals. They will not touch an ass, a cat or a dog, and consider it sinful to kill animals which bark or bray.
They will take food from the hands of all except the
most impure castes, and will admit into the community
any man who has taken an Ojha woman to live with him,
even though he be a sweeper, provided that he will submit
to the prescribed test of begging from the houses of five
Gonds and eating the leavings of food of the other Ojhas.
They will pardon the transgression of one of their women
with an outsider of any caste whatever, if she is able and
willing to provide the usual penalty feast. They have no
sutak or period of impurity after a death, but merely take
a mouthful of liquor and consider themselves clean. In
physical appearance the Ojhas resemble the Gonds but
are less robust. They rank below the Gonds and are considered
as impure by the Hindu castes. In 1865, an Ojha
held a village in Hoshangabad District which he had
obtained as follows :
^ " He was singing and dancing before
Raja Raghuji, when the Raja said he would give a rent-free
village to any one who would pick up and chew a quid of
betel-leaf which he (the Raja) had had in his mouth and had
spat out. The Ojha did this and got the village."
The Maithil or Tirhut Brahmans who are especially
learned in Tantric magic are also sometimes known as Ojha,
and a family bearing this title were formerly in the service of
the Gond kings of Mandla.
They do not now admit that they acted as augurs or soothsayers, but state that their business was to pray continuously for the king's success when he was engaged in any battle, and to sit outside the rooms of sick persons repeating the sacred Gayatri verse for their recovery. This is often repeated ten times, counting by a special method on the joints of the fingers and is then known as Jap. When it is repeated a larger number of times, as 54 or 108, a rosary is used. ' ,Sir C. A. Elliott's Hoshangabad Settlentait
