Indian Antiquary Vol 57

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 160

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ AUGUST, 1926
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Abhira tribe, there is no doubt that it is now and has been for centuries a purely oocupational caste, largely recruited from the indigenous tribes."
In Bihar, the fact that their position in the social order has not been definitely established is clear from the discussions on the subject at conferences of the caste held from time to time in comparatively recent years. They have on several occasions claimed to be classed as Ksatriyas, and entitled to wear the sacred thrend. While at least on one occasion, at a conference held in the Bhagalpur district some fourteen or fifteen years ago, it was resolved that the Ahirs were not Sûdras, but Vaisyas. Further to the east and south-east we meet, no doubt, with Ahîrs, or Goalas, as they are usually called in those parts, of obviously lower origin. In Bihar proper, and more especially perhaps in the area to which the following account relates, the Ahirs are ordinarily regarded as good Hindus ; and they would warmly resent being called Südras. These Ahirs as a general rule lead an orthodox life ; and, except on the occasion of this particular festival, I have never heard of their eating village pig. There are scores of proverbs in the Bihár vernacularz referring to the Ahîr and his proclivities. The allusions are generally confined to his thieving propensities, his quarrelsomeness and his dullness of intellect, which are the traits most commonly assigned to him. There is no suggestion of his aboriginal descent. In the Bhojpur country the Ahîrs are chiefly famous for carrying a very long and heavy lathi (bamboo stave) and for their addiction to theft. Their reputation has given rise to a well-known saying current in the vernacular, which may be translated thus - "Don't go to Bhojpur. If you go, don't eat. If you eat, don't go to sleep. If you sleep, don't feel for your purse: if you do, don't weep it will not be there !)."
John Christian, in his Bihar Proverbs, makes a reference to the festival which is the subject of this paper, and the object of which, he writes, “is to make the cow dance." He spells the local name Tore, as if it meant a row (or herd) of cow'; but the correct spelling in the local dialect is mori. Risley, in his Tribes and Castes of Bengal, also refers to a similar festival, which he describes as follows: "At the time of the Sankranti on the last day of Kártik, October-November, a pig is turned loose [i.e., by the Goalas) among a herd of buffalocs, who are encouraged to gore it to death. The carcase is then given to Dos idhs to cat. The Coális or Ahirs, who practise this strange rite, aver that it has no religious significance, and is merely a sort of popular amusement. They do not themselves partake of any portion of the pig." Risley's date for the festival, which is not connected with the samkrinti, in incorrect. Crooke would appear not to have observed the occurrence of this festival himself, but be refers to Risley's and Christian's accounts in his Popular Religion and Foll-lore of Northern India, and in his Tribes and Castes of the N.W.P. d 0..9 respectively. In Pollore for 1917, he refers to a Madras Museum Bulletin describing a ceremony in Southern India, when a pig is buried up to the neck in a pit at the entrance to the village, and all the village cattle are driven over its head. The practice appears to form part of a complex rite: intended to propitiate Peddamma, possibly a chthonic deity, who controls cholera and small pox. In vol. XV of the Journal of the Department of Letters, Calcutta University (pp. 201-03), reference is made to the practices followed by Goalås, and Kurmis, in the Rajshahi and Manbhûm districts of Bengal, which would seem to be very similar to the Bihär ceremonies.
The season of the year when the festival is held must also be noted. It is the time when the hard labour of ploughing and preparing the fields for the cold weather crops has ordinarily been finished.10 In fact the ceremony was once explained to me as being of the nature of a
8 Bihar Proverbs, pp. 52-53. 7 Tribes and Oastes, I, 290. 8 Popular Religion and Folklore (1896 ed.), II, 298. • Tribes and Castes of the N.W.P. de O., I, 334.
10 Compare also the references to the pig as the embodiment of the corn spirit, and as a sacrificial vistim in Sir J. Frazer's Golden Bough (passim).