![KHOND1
[The principal authorities on the Khonds are Sir H. Risley’s Tribes and
Castes of Bengal, Major-General Campbell’s Wild Tribes of Khondistān,
and Major MacPherson’s Report on the Khonds of the Districts of Ganjām
and Cuttack (Reprint, Madras Scottish United Press, 1863). When the
inquiries leading up to these volumes were undertaken, the Central
Provinces contained a large body of the tribe, but the bulk of these have
passed to Bihār and Orissa with the transfer of the Kālāhandi and Patna
States and the Sambalpur District. Nevertheless, as information of interest
had been collected, it has been thought desirable to reproduce it, and Sir
James Frazer’s description of the human sacrifices formerly in vogue has
been added. Much of the original information contained in this article was
furnished by Mr. Panda Baijnāth, Extra Assistant Commissioner, when
Dīwān of Patna State. Papers were also contributed by Rai Sāhib
Dīnbandhu Patnāik, Dīwān of Sonpur, Mr. Miān Bhai, Extra Assistant
Commissioner, Sambalpur, and Mr. Chāru Chandra Ghose, Deputy
Inspector of Schools, Kālāhandi.]
List of Paragraphs
1. Traditions of the tribe. 464
2. Tribal divisions. 465
3. Exogamous septs. 466
4. Marriage. 467
5. Customs at birth. 468
6. Disposal of the dead. 469
7. Occupation. 470
8. A Khond combat. 470
9. Social customs. 472
10. Festivals. 472
11. Religion. 473](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/5064423-250530024945-bb8c1580/85/Material-Computation-Higher-Integration-In-Morphogenetic-Design-Architectural-Design-03042012-Profile-216-Achim-Menges-22-320.jpg)
Material Computation Higher Integration In Morphogenetic Design Architectural Design 03042012 Profile 216 Achim Menges
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- 5. architectural design March/april 2012 Profile No 216 Guest-edited by achim menges Material Computation
- 7. 3 architectural design forthcoming 3 Titles Volume 82 No 3 Volume 82 No 4 May/June 2012 – profile no 217 Iran: Past, Present and Future Guest-edited by Michael Hensel and Mehran Gharleghi Over the last few decades, Iranian architects have made a significant contribution to architectural design. This has, however, remained largely unrecognised internationally, as architects in Iran have had little exposure in publications abroad and the diaspora of well-known Iranian designers working in the West, such as Hariri & Hariri and Nader Tehrani of NADAAA, are not necessarily associated with their cultural background. Moreover Iran, or rather Persia, has one of the richest and longest architectural heritages, which has a great deal of untapped potential for contemporary design. The intention of this issue is both to introduce key works and key architects from a range of generations – at home and abroad – and to highlight the potential of historical structures for contemporary architecture. • Features Hariri & Hariri, Nader Tehrani of NADAAA, Farjadi Architects, and studio INTEGRATE. • Places the spotlight on emerging practices in Iran: Arsh Design Studio, Fluid Motion Architects, Pouya Khazaeli Parsa and Kourosh Rafiey (Asar). • Contributors include: Reza Daneshmir and Catherine Spiridonoff, Farrokh Derakhshani, Darab Diba, Dr Nasrine Faghih and Amin Sadeghy, Farshad Farahi, Mehran Gharleghi and Michael Hensel. • Looks at garden and landscape design as well as the urban fabric in Iran from a historical and contemporary context. • Includes articles on the work of post-revolutionary architecture. July/august 2012 – PROFILE NO 218 Scarcity: Architecture in an Age of Depleting Resources Guest-edited by Jon Goodbun with Jeremy Till and Deljana Iossifova Currently, the world is experiencing a ‘perfect storm’ of social, political, economic and ecological proportions. The full extent and severity of present conditions are yet to be determined. One thing, however, is certain: the foreseeable future will not be like the recent past. Leading analysts of all the major resource domains – water, food, material, energy and finance – are all telling us that our global industrial growth models, driven by speculation on unstable financial markets, are taking the planet to the brink of chronic scarcity. Some of these shortages are determined by natural limits of mineral resources, such as petroleum and coal, and others by the mismanagement of natural resources, such as water, timber and food; a situation that is often characterised by uneven social and geographic distribution of supplies. In architecture, concerns about depleting material and energy sources have largely been centred on the more emollient category of ‘sustainability’. In the next decade, however, as the situation becomes more pressing, architects and designers will need to confront the reality of scarcity. There are many ways that architecture, urban planning and design research can tackle such issues: from developing new forms of analysis of global flows and scarcities, to specific local and global design-based solutions. A full engagement with these issues has the potential to completely reconfigure design practice in radically new, post-sustainable directions. • Brings together leading thinkers for the first time in a single volume: Ezio Manzini, Erik Swyngedouw, John Thackara and Jeremy Till. • Featured architects and designers include: Jody Boehnert, Katrin Bohn and André Viljoen, and muf. Volume 82 No 5 September/October 2012 – PROFILE NO 219 City Catalyst: Architecture in the Age of Extreme Urbanisation Guest-edited by Alexander Eisenschmidt The city has become an important new starting point in the quest for architecture. At a time of extreme urbanisation, unharnessed urban growth has led many architects to rethink the way that buildings are designed for the global metropolis. It is no longer practical or desirable to impose the standardised, idealised planning of the 20th century. Rather than viewing the city as a fixed entity, architects are now seeking direct inspiration from the existing urban environment and learning from its ever-changing state that resists predetermination. The city, in all its complexity, has become a realm of invention and a space for possibilities where new designs can be tested. This is as apparent in the work that architects are undertaking in the informal settlements, or favelas, of Latin America, as in the more regulated spaces of Chicago, London or Tokyo. Favouring an inclusive way of viewing the city, no aspect of the urban world is any longer rejected outright, and architects and urban designers instead find potential and learn from the underlying dynamics of the contemporary city. This attitude highlights the generative capacities of the city and finds new ways of engaging it. At the very least, it advances an architectural thinking that engages the city on its own ground, abets its potential and seeks opportunities in the existing condition. • Featured architects: Atelier Bow-Wow, Jürgen Mayer H, Normal Architecture Office (NAO), Adriaan Geuze/West 8, Ron Witte/WW, UrbanLab, Sean Lally/Weathers, and OMA. • Key contributors: Keller Easterling, Jiang Jun, Albert Pope, Michelle Provoost, Robert Somol, Kyong Park, Jesse LeCavalier, Daniela Fabricius and Bernard Tschumi (interview). isbn 978 1119 973621 isbn 978 1119 972662 isbn 978 1119 974505
- 8. Architectural Design 02|2012 Architectural Design march/april 2012 ISSN 0003-8504 Profile No 216 ISBN 978-0470-973301 Guest-edited by Achim Menges Material Computation Higher Integration in MOrphogenetic Design
- 9. 2 1 ArchitecturAl Design Guest-edited by Achim menGes in this issue eDitorAl Helen Castle ABout the guest-eDitor Achim Menges spotlight Visual highlights of the issue 1 introDuction Material Computation: Higher Integration in Morphogenetic Design Achim Menges eDitoriAl BoArD Will Alsop Denise Bratton Paul Brislin Mark Burry André Chaszar Nigel Coates Peter Cook Teddy Cruz Max Fordham Massimiliano Fuksas Edwin Heathcote Michael Hensel Anthony Hunt Charles Jencks Bob Maxwell Jayne Merkel Peter Murray Mark Robbins Deborah Saunt Leon van Schaik Patrik Schumacher Neil Spiller Michael Weinstock Ken Yeang Alejandro Zaera-Polo 22 Pattern Formation in Nature: Physical Constraints and Self-Organising Characteristics Philip Ball 2 Evolutionary Architecture? Some Perspectives From Biological Design J Scott Turner Material Resourcefulness: Activating Material Information in Computational Design Achim Menges mAteriAl computAtion: hiGher inteGrAtion in morphoGenetic desiGn A novel convergence of computation and materialisation is about to arise, bringing the virtual processes of computational design and the physical realisation of architecture much closer together … — Achim Menges 2
- 10. 3 Material Behaviour: Embedding Physical Properties in Computational Design Processes Moritz Fleischmann, Jan Knippers, Julian Lienhard, Achim Menges and Simon Schleicher 2 Material Capacity: Embedded Responsiveness Achim Menges and Steffen Reichert 0 Physical Drivers: Synthesis of Evolutionary Developments and Force-Driven Design Sean Ahlquist and Achim Menges Design to Self-Assembly Skylar Tibbits Aggregate Structures: Material and Machine Computation of Designed Granular Substances Karola Dierichs and Achim Menges 2 Living Systems: Designing Growth in Baubotanik Ferdinand Ludwig, Hannes Schwertfeger and Oliver Storz Programming Matter Neri Oxman Material Articulation: Computing and Constructing Continuous Differentiation Cristiano Ceccato 10 Material, Form and Force Toni Kotnik and Michael Weinstock 112 Engineering Integration: Real-Time Approaches to Performative Computational Design Al Fisher 11 Manufacturing Reciprocities Achim Menges and Tobias Schwinn 12 The Role of Additive Manufacturing and Physiomimetic Computational Design for Digital Construction Rupert Soar and David Andreen 1 counterpoint Distinguishing Between the Drawn and the Made Bob Sheil Computational design and fabrication have the potential to break down the artificial separation of design into form-finding and engineering simulation and in so doing to more closely reflect the properties of the physical world, where form is inseparably connected to internal constraints and external forces. The shift from task-specific computer numerically controlled (CNC) machines to more generic industrial robots is revolutionising the interface between design computation and physical materialisation. 3
- 11. 1 Architectural Design March/April 2012 Profile No 216 Editorial Offices John Wiley & Sons 25 John Street London WC1N 2BS T: +44 (0)20 8326 3800 Editor Helen Castle Managing Editor (Freelance) Caroline Ellerby Production Editor Elizabeth Gongde Prepress Artmedia, London Art Direction and Design CHK Design: Christian Küsters Sophie Troppmair Printed in Italy by Conti Tipocolor Sponsorship/advertising Faith Pidduck/Wayne Frost T: +44 (0)1243 770254 E: fpidduck@wiley.co.uk All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Subscribe to 1 1 is published bimonthly and is available to purchase on both a subscription basis and as individual volumes at the following prices. Prices Individual copies: £22.99/ US$45 Mailing fees may apply Annual Subscription Rates Student: £75 / US$117 print only Individual: £120 / US$189 print only Institutional: £200 / US$375 print or online Institutional: £230 / US$431 combined print and online Subscription Offices UK John Wiley & Sons Ltd Journals Administration Department 1 Oldlands Way, Bognor Regis West Sussex, PO22 9SA T: +44 (0)1243 843 272 F: +44 (0)1243 843 232 E: cs-journals@wiley.co.uk Print ISSN: 0003-8504; Online ISSN: 1554-2769 Prices are for six issues and include postage and handling charges. Individual rate subscriptions must be paid by personal cheque or credit card. Individual rate subscriptions may not be resold or used as library copies. All prices are subject to change without notice. Rights and Permissions Requests to the Publisher should be addressed to: Permissions Department John Wiley & Sons Ltd The Atrium Southern Gate Chichester West Sussex PO19 8SQ England F: +44 (0)1243 770 620 E: permreq@wiley.co.uk Front cover: Institute for Computational Design (Achim Menges) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (Jan Knippers), ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2010, University of Stuttgart, 2010. © Roland Halbe Inside front cover: (Detail) Institute for Computational Design (Achim Menges) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (Jan Knippers), ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2011, University of Stuttgart, 2011. © ICD/ITKE University of Stuttgart 02|2012 4 4
- 12. Editorial Helen Castle 5 Since the earliest years of Modernism, machine-aided fabrication has represented the Holy Grail of architecture: a means of exerting greater design control over the construction process and reducing the costs and obstacles that are part and parcel of the conventional building process. By the late 1990s, the onset of CAD-CAM and CNC milling, personified by the high-profile employment of CATIA at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (1997) by Frank Gehry, fuelled a whole new pipeline of architectural visions; in his Embryological House Project (2000), for instance, Greg Lynn charismatically conjured up a future in which series of branded homes could be designed and customised like trainers. Though this fantasy is yet to be realised with quite this ease of delivery, architecture schools worldwide have taken up the gauntlet, competing on the size of their laser-cutting and milling machines – with robots now frequently making a guest appearance. This title of 3shifts the entire focus for thinking about the production of architecture as one that is entirely technologically focused. Though new technologies such as the employment of industrial robots in the place of computer numerically controlled (CNC) machines open up the possibilities for architectural exploration per se (see Achim Menges and Tobias Schwinn on ‘Manufacturing Reciprocities’, pp 118–25), they do not alone in themselves provide the raison d’être or drive for the ideas and research propagated in Material Computation. For Menges, the greatest potential lies in computation’s power to provide a better understanding of material behaviour and characteristics and then, in turn, to inform the organisation of matter and form in design. For him, ‘compute’ is very much a verb rather than a noun, referring to the processing of information, which is as applicable to natural as it is to artificial systems. His 3 Reader, Computational Design Thinking (John Wiley & Sons, 2011), edited with Sean Ahlquist, establishes a foundation for such thought in architecture. It looks far beyond the conventional domain of computer-aided architecture, drawing on relevant principles from mathematics and computer science, developmental and evolutionary biology, system science and philosophy. In this respect, Menges’ interest in material computation should be viewed as part of a much bigger research project that he is now pursuing as a professor and director at the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart, and previously as a studio master of the Emergent Technologies and Design (EmTech) graduate programme at the Architectural Association (AA) in London (see ‘About the Guest- Editor’, p 7). For 3, it also represents the fourth in a lineage of highly successful publications on different aspects of morphogenetic design by Menges and his EmTech collaborators at the AA, Michael Hensel and Michael Weinstock. These include: Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies (Vol 74, No 3, May/June 2004), Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design (Vol 76, No 2, March/April 2006) and Versatility and Vicissitude: Performance in Morpho-Ecological Design (Vol 78, No 2, March/April 2008). 1 Text © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Image © Steve Gorton 5
- 13. 6 Achim Menges, Morphogenetic Design Experiments 01–05, London, 2002–06 bottom: A series of morphogenetic design experiments investigated the possible integration of physical and computational morphogenetic processes in architecture. Achim Menges with Steffen Reichert, HygroScope – Meteorosensitive Morphology, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2012 centre: The project explores a novel mode of responsive architecture based on the combination of material inherent behaviour and computational morphogenesis. The dimensional instability of wood in relation to moisture content is employed to construct a highly differentiated architectural envelope that opens and closes in response to climate changes with no need for any technical equipment. Achim Menges, Steffen Reichert and Scheffler+Partner, FAZ Pavilion, Frankfurt, 2010 top: The pavilion design is derived from biomimetic research investigating autonomous, passively actuated surface structures responsive to changes in ambient humidity based on the biological principles of conifer cones. When the weather changes, the pavilion’s envelope adapts to the related increase in relative ambient humidity by closing its weatherproof skin. 6
- 14. about the guest-editor Achim Menges Achim Menges’ fascination with nature’s intricate processes of material articulation and ecological embedding has driven both his architectural practice and his academic work as professor at the University of Stuttgart, and visiting professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) and the Architectural Association (AA) in London. His multifaceted body of morphogenetic design research investigates a wide range of disciplinary concerns, one of which will be presented in this issue: the possible integration of design computation and materialisation in architecture. Menges received a diploma with honours from the AA, where he taught as studio master of the Emergent Technologies and Design (EmTech) graduate programme from 2002 to 2009, and as a diploma unit master from 2003 to 2006. Only six years after graduating, he was appointed as tenure professor and director of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart, a school renowned for creatively engaging the rigour and insights of engineering science in architectural design, best exemplified by one of its most prolific former institute leaders: Frei Otto. Similar to Otto, Menges conceives of physical and material computation as a potent driver for integrative architectural design. His institute thus investigates ways of synthesising physical and computational morphogenetic processes. It pursues both basic research in design computation and digital fabrication, as well as applied multidisciplinary computational design research with leading industrial partners including Mercedes-Benz’s Advanced Design department. In addition to the research and doctorate programmes, the ICD is currently preparing for its first intake of masters students in autumn 2012. Menges’ design work has won numerous international awards, has been exhibited worldwide, and forms part of the permanent collection of, among others, the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He is the editor/author of numerous architectural books and magazines, and has published extensively in internationally renowned architectural magazines and journals. 1 Note 1. Sanford Kwinter, ‘A Conversation Between Sanford Kwinter and Jason Payne’, in T Sakamoto, A Ferre and M Kubo (eds), From Control to Design: Parametric/Algorithmic Architecture, Actar (Barcelona), 2008, S 226. Text © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images © Achim Menges 7 Achim Menges … derives all his experiments from the concrete world of materials loaded with forces and uses the software environment to capture the geometries that the real world produces and to subject them to systematics. … He naturally speaks about a ‘physiology’ of forms in the same way as a biologist: because he has a purchase on actual behaviours – and not only fantasies of behaviours – he can operate on matter in a way not dissimilar to the meshworks of nature. His forms are resultants, not of crude literalisms like ‘indexes’ but of ‘logics’ and algorithmic machines. … Because he has understood that form is an exfoliation of logic – not force – he may be alone to have any claim to being a materialist in the end. — Sanford Kwinter1 7
- 15. spotlight Rather than taking raw materials, sending them through a machine or process that is inherently fighting tolerances, errors and energy consumption to arrive at a desired product, we should be directly embedding assembly information into raw materials, then watching as the materials assemble themselves … — Skylar Tibbits 8
- 16. Logic Matter, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2010 Logic Matter is a system built upon redundant information. The white units are redundant information used as input for the growth of a structure. They provide structural redundancy and store assembly information like a hard drive. The grey units are the primary unit providing computation and the linear sequence of growth. Skylar Tibbits 9
- 17. 10
- 18. ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2010, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, 2010 The combination of the pre-stress resulting from the elastic bending during the assembly process and the morphological differentiation of the joint locations enables a very lightweight and materially efficient system. The entire pavilion was constructed using only 6.5-millimetre (¼-inch) thin birch plywood sheets. ICD + ITKE University of Stuttgart G G 11
- 19. Hyper-Toroidal Deep Surface Studies, Institute for Computational Design (ICD), University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, 2011 Physical prototype at the approximate size of 120 x 80 x 150 centimetres (47 x 31 x 59 inches). Integrated tensioned surface and mesh morphologies based upon multiple hyper- toroidal cellular topologies derived through a computational design framework by Sean Ahlquist. Boyan Mihaylov + Viktoriya Nikolova G G 12
- 20. Exploring the Variety of Random Documents with Different Content
- 21. 1 Circumcision and the wearing of a beard are optional. They do not have mosques, but meet to pray at a lodge called the Jama’at Khāna. They repeat the names of their Pīrs or saints on a rosary made of 101 beads of clay from Karbala, the scene of the death of Hasan and Husain. At their marriages, deaths and on every new-moon day, contributions are levied which are sent to His Highness the Aga Khān. “A remarkable feature at a Khojāh’s death,” Mr. Farīdi states, “is the samarchhanta or Holy Drop. The Jama’at officer asks the dying Khojāh whether he wishes for the Holy Drop, and if the latter agrees he must bequeath Rs. 5 to Rs. 500 to the Jama’at. The officer dilutes a cake of Karbala clay in water and moistens the lips of the dying man with it, sprinkling the remainder over his face, neck and chest. The touch of the Holy Drop is believed to save the departing soul from the temptation of the Arch-Fiend, and to remove the death-agony as completely as among the Sunnis does the recital at a death-bed of the chapter of the Korān known as the Sūrah-i-Yā-sīn. If the dead man is old and grey-haired the hair after death is dyed with henna. A garland of cakes of Karbala clay is tied round the neck of the corpse. If the body is to be buried locally two small circular patches of silk cloth cut from the covering of Husain’s tomb, called chashmah or spectacles, are laid over the eyes. Those Khojāhs who can afford it have their bodies placed in air-tight coffins and transported to the field of Karbala in Persia to be buried there. The bodies are taken by steamer to Bāghdād, and thence by camel to Karbala. “The Khojāhs are keen and enterprising traders, and are great travellers by land and sea, visiting and settling in distant countries for purposes of trade. They have business connections with Ceylon, Burma, Singapore, China and Japan, and with ports of the Persian Gulf, Arabia and East Africa. Khojāh boys go as apprentices in foreign Khojāh firms on salaries of Rs. 200 to Rs. 2000 a year with board and lodging.” This article consists mainly of extracts from Mr. F. L. Farīdi’s full account of the Khojāhs in the Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of Gujarāt.
- 22. KHOND1 [The principal authorities on the Khonds are Sir H. Risley’s Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Major-General Campbell’s Wild Tribes of Khondistān, and Major MacPherson’s Report on the Khonds of the Districts of Ganjām and Cuttack (Reprint, Madras Scottish United Press, 1863). When the inquiries leading up to these volumes were undertaken, the Central Provinces contained a large body of the tribe, but the bulk of these have passed to Bihār and Orissa with the transfer of the Kālāhandi and Patna States and the Sambalpur District. Nevertheless, as information of interest had been collected, it has been thought desirable to reproduce it, and Sir James Frazer’s description of the human sacrifices formerly in vogue has been added. Much of the original information contained in this article was furnished by Mr. Panda Baijnāth, Extra Assistant Commissioner, when Dīwān of Patna State. Papers were also contributed by Rai Sāhib Dīnbandhu Patnāik, Dīwān of Sonpur, Mr. Miān Bhai, Extra Assistant Commissioner, Sambalpur, and Mr. Chāru Chandra Ghose, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Kālāhandi.] List of Paragraphs 1. Traditions of the tribe. 464 2. Tribal divisions. 465 3. Exogamous septs. 466 4. Marriage. 467 5. Customs at birth. 468 6. Disposal of the dead. 469 7. Occupation. 470 8. A Khond combat. 470 9. Social customs. 472 10. Festivals. 472 11. Religion. 473
- 23. 12. Human sacrifice. 474 13. Last human sacrifices. 479 14. Khond rising in 1882. 480 15. Language. 481 1. Traditions of the tribe. Khond, Kandh.1—A Dravidian tribe found in the Uriya-speaking tract of the Sambalpur District and the adjoining Feudatory States of Patna and Kālāhandi, which up to 1905 were included in the Central Provinces, but now belong to Bihār and Orissa. The Province formerly contained 168,000 Khonds, but the number has been reduced to about 10,000, residing mainly in the Khariār zamīndāri to the south-east of the Raipur District and the Sārangarh State. The tract inhabited by the Khonds was known generally as the Kondhān. The tribe call themselves Kuiloka, or Kuienju, which may possibly be derived from ko or kū, a Telugu word for a mountain.2 Their own traditions as to their origin are of little historical value, but they were almost certainly at one time the rulers of the country in which they now reside. It was the custom until recently for the Rāja of Kālāhandi to sit on the lap of a Khond on his accession while he received the oaths of fealty. The man who held the Rāja was the eldest member of a particular family, residing in the village of Gugsai Patna, and had the title of Patnaji. The coronation of a new Rāja took place in this village, to which all the chiefs repaired. The Patnaji would be seated on a large rock, richly dressed, with a cloth over his knees on which the Rāja sat. The Dīwān or minister then tied the turban of state on the Rāja’s head, while all the other chiefs present held the ends of the cloth. The ceremony fell into abeyance when Raghu Kesari Deo was made Rāja on the deposition of his predecessor for misconduct, as the Patnaji refused to install a second Rāja, while one previously consecrated by him was still living. The Rāja was also accustomed to marry a Khond girl as one of his wives, though latterly he did not allow her to live
- 24. in the palace. These customs have lately been abandoned; they may probably be interpreted as a recognition that the Rājas of Kālāhandi derived their rights from the Khonds. Many of the zamīndāri estates of Kālāhandi and Sonpur are still held by members of the tribe. 2. Tribal divisions. There is no strict endogamy within the Khond tribe. It has two main divisions: the Kutia Khonds who are hillmen and retain their primitive tribal customs, and the plain-dwelling Khonds who have acquired a tincture of Hinduism. The Kutia or hill Khonds are said to be so called because they break the skulls of animals when they kill them for food; the word kutia meaning one who breaks or smashes. The plain-dwelling Khonds have a number of subdivisions which are supposed to be endogamous, though the rule is not strictly observed. Among these the Rāj Khonds are the highest, and are usually landed proprietors. A man, however, is not considered to be a Rāj Khond unless he possesses some land, and if a Rāj Khond takes a bride from another group he descends to it. A similar rule applies among some of the other groups, a man being relegated to his wife’s division when he marries into one which is lower than his own. The Dal Khonds may probably have been soldiers, the word dal meaning an army. They are also known as Adi Kandh or the superior Khonds, and as Bālūsudia or ‘Shaven.’ At present they usually hold the honourable position of village priest, and have to a certain extent adopted Hindu usages, refusing to eat fowls or buffaloes, and offering the leaves of the tulsi (basil) to their deities. The Kandhanas are so called because they grow turmeric, which is considered rather a low thing to do, and the Pākhia because they eat the flesh of the por or buffalo. The Gauria are graziers, and the Nāgla or naked ones apparently take their name from their paucity of clothing. The Utār or Satbhuiyān are a degraded group, probably of illegitimate descent; for the other Khonds will take daughters from them, but will not give their daughters to them.
- 25. 3. Exogamous septs. Traditionally the Khonds have thirty-two exogamous septs, but the number has now increased. All the members of one sept live in the same locality about some central village. Thus the Tūpa sept are collected round the village of Teplagarh in the Patna State, the Loa sept round Sindhekala, the Borga sept round Bangomunda, and so on. The names of the septs are derived either from the names of villages or from titles or nicknames. Each sept is further divided into a number of subsepts whose names are of a totemistic nature, being derived from animals, plants or natural objects. Instances of these are Bachhās calf, Chhatra umbrella, Hikoka horse, Kelka the kingfisher, Konjaka the monkey, Mandinga an earthen pot, and so on. It is a very curious fact that while the names of the septs appear to belong to the Khond language, those of the subsepts are all Uriya words, and this affords some ground for the supposition that they are more recent than the septs, an opinion to which Sir H. Risley inclines. On the other hand, the fact that the subsepts have totemistic names appears difficult of explanation under this hypothesis. Members of the subsept regard the animal or plant after which it is named as sacred. Those of the Kadam group will not stand under the tree of that name. Those of the Narsingha3 sept will not kill a tiger or eat the meat of any animal wounded or killed by this animal. The same subsept will be found in several different septs, and a man may not marry a woman belonging either to the same sept or subsept as his own. But kinship through females is disregarded, and he may take his maternal uncle’s daughter to wife, and in Kālāhandi is not debarred from wedding his mother’s sister.4
- 26. 4. Marriage. Marriage is adult and a large price, varying from 12 to 20 head of cattle, was formerly demanded for the bride. This has now, however, been reduced in some localities to two or three animals and a rupee each in lieu of the others, or cattle may be entirely dispensed with and some grain given. If a man cannot afford to purchase a bride he may serve his father-in-law for seven years as the condition of obtaining her. A proposal for marriage is made by placing a brass cup and three arrows at the door of the girl’s father. He will remove these once to show his reluctance, and they will be again replaced. If he removes them a second time, it signifies his definite refusal of the match, but if he allows them to remain, the bridegroom’s friends go to him and say, ‘We have noticed a beautiful flower in passing through your village and desire to pluck it.’ The wedding procession goes from the bride’s to the bridegroom’s house as among the Gonds; this custom, as remarked by Mr. Bell, is not improbably a survival of marriage by capture, when the husband carried off his wife and married her at his own house. At the marriage the bride and bridegroom come out, each sitting on the shoulders of one of their relatives. The bridegroom pulls the bride to his side, when a piece of cloth is thrown over them, and they are tied together with a string of new yarn wound round them seven times. A cock is sacrificed, and the cheeks of the couple are singed with burnt bread. They pass the night in a veranda, and next day are taken to a tank, the bridegroom being armed with a bow and arrows. He shoots one through each of seven cowdung cakes, the bride after each shot washing his forehead and giving him a green twig for a tooth-brush and some sweets. This is symbolical of their future course of life, when the husband will procure food by hunting, while the wife will wait on him and prepare his food. Sexual intercourse before marriage between a man and girl of the tribe is condoned so long as they are not within the prohibited degrees of relationship, and in Kālāhandi such liaisons are a matter of ordinary occurrence. If a girl is seduced by one man and subsequently married to another, the first lover usually pays the husband a sum of seven to twelve rupees as compensation. In Sambalpur a girl may choose her own husband, and the couple commonly form an intimacy while engaged in agricultural work. Such unions are known as
- 27. Udhlia or ‘Love in the fields.’ If the parents raise any objection to the match the couple elope and return as man and wife, when they have to give a feast to the caste, and if the girl was previously betrothed to another man the husband must pay him compensation. In the last case the union is called Paisa moli or marriage by purchase. A trace of fraternal polyandry survives in the custom by which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder brother’s wife till the time of their own marriage. Widow-marriage and divorce are recognised. 5. Customs at birth. For one day after a child has been born the mother is allowed no food. On the sixth day she herself shaves the child’s head and bites his nails short with her teeth, after which she takes a bow and arrows and stands with the child facing successively to the four points of the compass. The idea of this is to make the child a skilful hunter when he grows up. Children are named in their fifth or sixth year. Names are sometimes given after some personal peculiarity, as Lammudia, long-headed, or Khanja, one having six fingers; or after some circumstance of the birth, as Ghosian, in compliment to the Ghasia (grass-cutter) woman who acts as midwife; Jugi, because some holy mendicant (Yogi) was halting in the village when the child was born; or a child may be named after the day of the week or month on which it was born. The tribe believe that the souls of the departed are born again as children, and boys have on occasion been named Majhiān Budhi or the old head-woman, whom they suppose to have been born again with a change of sex. Major Macpherson observed the same belief:5 “To determine the best name for the child, the priest drops grains of rice into a cup of water, naming with each grain a deceased ancestor. He pronounces, from the movements of the seed in the fluid, and from observations made on the person of the infant, which of his progenitors has reappeared in him, and the child generally, but not uniformly, receives the name of that ancestor.” When the children are named, they are made to ride a goat or a pig, as a
- 28. mark of respect, it is said, to the ancestor who has been reborn in them. Names usually recur after the third generation. 6. Disposal of the dead. The dead are buried as a rule, but the practice of cremating the bodies of adults is increasing. When a body is buried a rupee or a copper coin is tied in the sheet, so that the deceased may not go penniless to the other world. Sometimes the dead man’s clothes and bows and arrows are buried with him. On the tenth day the soul is brought back. Outside the village, where two roads meet, rice is offered to a cock, and if it eats, this is a sign that the soul has come. The soul is then asked to ride on a bowstick covered with cloth, and is brought to the house and placed in a corner with those of other relatives. The souls are fed annually with rice on the harvest and Dasahra festivals. In Sambalpur a ball of powdered rice is placed under a tree with a lamp near it, and the first insect that settles on the ball is taken to be the soul, and is brought home and worshipped. The souls of infants who die before the umbilical cord has dropped are not brought back, because they are considered to have scarcely come into existence; and Sir E. Gait records that one of the causes of female infanticide was the belief that the souls of girl-children thus killed would not be born again, and hence the number of future female births would decrease. This belief partially conflicts with that of the change of sex on rebirth mentioned above; but the two might very well exist together. The souls of women who die during pregnancy or after a miscarriage, or during the monthly period of impurity are also not brought back, no doubt because they are held to be malignant spirits. 7. Occupation.
- 29. The Khond traditionally despises all occupations except those of husbandry, hunting and war. “In Orissa,” Sir H. Risky states, “they claim full rights of property in the soil in virtue of having cleared the jungle and prepared the land for cultivation. In some villages individual ownership is unknown, and the land is cultivated on a system of temporary occupation subject to periodical redistribution under the orders of the headman or mālik.” Like the other forest tribes they are improvident and fond of drink. Macpherson6 described the Khonds as faithful to friends, devoted to their chiefs, resolute, brave, hospitable and laborious; but these high qualities meet with no recognition among the Uriya Hindus, who regard their stupidity as the salient attribute of the Khonds and have various tales in derision of them, like those told of the weavers. They consider the Khonds as only a little superior to the impure Doms (musicians and sweepers), and say, ‘Kandh ghare Domna Mantri,’ or ‘In a Kandh house the Dom is Prime Minister.’ This is paralleled by the similar relation between the Gonds and Pardhāns. The arms of the Khonds were a light, long-handled sword with a blade very curiously carved, the bow and arrow and the sling—no shields being used. The axe also was used with both hands, to strike and guard, its handle being partly defended by brass plates and wire for the latter purpose. The following description of a battle between rival Khond clans was recorded by Major Macpherson as having been given to him by an eye- witness, and may be reproduced for its intrinsic interest; the fight was between the hostile tribes of Bora Mūta and Bora Des in the Gumsur territory: 8. A Khond combat. “At about 12 o’clock in the day the people of Bora Des began to advance in a mass across the Sālki river, the boundary between the Districts, into the plain of Kurmīngia, where a much smaller force was arrayed to oppose them. The combatants were protected from the neck to the loins by skins,
- 30. and cloth was wound round their legs down to the heel, but the arms were quite bare. Round the heads of many, too, cloth was wound, and for distinction the people of Bora Mūta wore peacock’s feathers in their hair, while those of Bora Des had cock’s tail plumes. They advanced with horns blowing, and the gongs beat when they passed a village. The women followed behind carrying pots of water and food for refreshments, and the old men who were past bearing arms were there, giving advice and encouragement. As the adverse parties approached, showers of stones, handed by the women, flew from slings from either side, and when they came within range arrows came in flights and many fell back wounded. At length single combats sprang up betwixt individuals who advanced before the rest, and when the first man fell all rushed to dip their axes in his blood, and hacked the body to pieces. The first man who himself unwounded slew his opponent, struck off the latter’s right arm and rushed with it to the priest in the rear, who bore it off as an offering to Loha Pennu (the Iron God or the God of Arms) in his grove. The right arms of the rest who fell were cut off in like manner and heaped in the rear beside the women, and to them the wounded were carried for care, and the fatigued men constantly retired for water. The conflict was at length general. All were engaged hand-to-hand, and now fought fiercely, now paused by common consent for a moment’s breathing. In the end the men of Bora Des, although superior in numbers, began to give way, and before four o’clock they were driven across the Sālki, leaving sixty men dead on the field, while the killed on the side of the Bora Mūta did not exceed thirty. And from the entire ignorance of the Khonds of the simplest healing processes, at least an equal number of the wounded died after the battle. The right hands of the slain were hung up by both parties on the trees of the villages and the dead were carried off to be burned. The people of Bora Des the next morning flung a piece of bloody cloth on the field of battle, a challenge to renew the conflict which was quickly accepted, and so the contest was kept up for three days.” The above account could, of course, find no place in a description of the Khonds of this generation, but has been thought worthy of quotation, as detailed descriptions of the manner of fighting of these tribes, now weaned from war by the British Government, are so rarely to be found.
- 31. 9. Social customs. The Khonds will admit into the community a male orphan child of any superior caste, including the Binjhwārs and Gonds. A virgin of any age of one of these castes will also be admitted. A Gond man who takes a Khond girl to wife can become a Khond by giving a feast. As might be expected the tribe are closely connected with the Gaurs or Uriya shepherds, whose business leads them to frequent the forests. Either a man or woman of the Gaurs can be taken into the community on marrying a Khond, and if a Khond girl marries a Gaur her children, though not herself, can become members of that caste. The Khonds will eat all kinds of animals, including rats, snakes and lizards, but with the exception of the Kutia Khonds they have now given up beef. In Kālāhandi social delinquencies are punished by a fine of so many field-mice, which the Khond considers a great delicacy. The catching of twenty to forty field-mice to liquidate the fine imposes on the culprit a large amount of trouble and labour, and when his task is completed his friends and neighbours fry the mice and have a feast with plenty of liquor, but he himself is not allowed to participate. Khond women are profusely tattooed with figures of trees, flowers, fishes, crocodiles, lizards and scorpions on the calf of the leg and the arms, hands and chest, but seldom on the face. This is done for purposes of ornament. Husband and wife do not mention each other’s names, and a woman may not speak the names of any of her husband’s younger brothers, as, if left a widow, she might subsequently have to marry one of them. A paternal or maternal aunt may not name her nephew, nor a man his younger brother’s wife. 10. Festivals.
- 32. The tribe have three principal festivals, known as the Semi Jātra, the Māhul Jātra and the Chāwal Dhūba Jātra. The Semi Jātra is held on the tenth day of the waning moon of Aghan (November) when the new semi or country beans are roasted, a goat or fowl is sacrificed, and some milk or water is offered to the earth god. From this day the tribe commence eating the new crop of beans. Similarly the Māhul Jātra is held on the tenth of the waning moon of Chait (March), and until this date a Khond may eat boiled mahua flowers, but not roasted ones. The principal festival is the Dasahra or Chāwal Dhūba (boiled rice) on the tenth day of the waning moon of Kunwār (September), which, in the case of the Khonds, marks the rice- harvest. The new rice is washed and boiled and offered to the earth god with the same accompaniment as in the case of the Semi Jātra, and until this date the Khond may not clean the new rice by washing it before being boiled, though he apparently may partake of it so long as it is not washed or cleaned, this rule and that regarding the mahua flowers being so made as concessions to convenience. 11. Religion. The Khond pantheon consists of eighty-four gods, of whom Dharni Deota, the earth god, is the chief. In former times the earth goddess was apparently female and was known as Tāri Pennu or Bera Pennu. To her were offered the terrible human sacrifices presently to be described. There is nothing surprising in the change of sex of the divine being, for which parallels are forthcoming. Thus in Chhattīsgarh the deity of the earth, who also received human sacrifices, is either Thākur Deo, a god, or Thakurāni Mai, a goddess. Deota is an Aryan term, and the proper Khond name for a god is Pennu. The earth god is usually accompanied by Bhātbarsi Deota, the god of hunting. Dharni Deota is represented by a rectangular peg of wood driven into the ground, while Bhātbarsi has a place at his feet in the shape of a piece of conglomerate stone covered with circular granules. Once in four or five years a buffalo is offered to the earth god, in lieu of the human sacrifice
- 33. which was formerly in vogue. The animal is predestined for sacrifice from its birth, and is allowed to wander loose and graze on the crops at its will. The stone representing Bhātbarsi is examined periodically, and when the granules on it appear to have increased, it is decided that the time has come for the sacrifice. In Kālāhandi a lamb is sacrificed every year, and strips of its flesh distributed to all the villagers, who bury it in their fields as a divine agent of fertilisation, in the same way as the flesh of the human victim was formerly buried. The Khond worships his bow and arrows before he goes out hunting, and believes that every hill and valley has its separate deity, who must be propitiated with the promise of a sacrifice before his territory is entered, or he will hide the animals within it from the hunter, and enable them to escape when wounded. These deities are closely related to each other, and it is important when arranging for an expedition to know the connection between them all; this information can be obtained from any one on whom the divine afflatus from time to time descends. 12. Human sacrifice. The following account of the well-known system of human sacrifice, formerly in vogue among the Khonds, is contained in Sir James Frazer’s Golden Bough, having been compiled by him from the accounts of Major Macpherson and Major-General John Campbell, two of the officers deputed to suppress it: “The best known case of human sacrifices systematically offered to ensure good crops is supplied by the Khonds or Kandhs, another Dravidian race in Bengal. Our knowledge of them is derived from the accounts written by British officers who, forty or fifty years ago, were engaged in putting them down. The sacrifices were offered to the Earth-Goddess, Tāri Pennu or Bera Pennu, and were believed to ensure good crops and immunity from all disease and accidents. In particular they were considered necessary in the cultivation of turmeric, the Khonds arguing that the turmeric could not have
- 34. a deep red colour without the shedding of blood. The victim or Meriāh was acceptable to the goddess only if he had been purchased, or had been born a victim—that is the son of a victim father—or had been devoted as a child by his father or guardian. Khonds in distress often sold their children for victims, ‘considering the beatification of their souls certain, and their death, for the benefit of mankind, the most honourable possible.’A man of the Panua (Pān) tribe was once seen to load a Khond with curses, and finally to spit in his face, because the Khond had sold for a victim his own child, whom the Panua had wished to marry. A party of Khonds, who saw this, immediately pressed forward to comfort the seller of his child, saying, ‘Your child has died that all the world may live, and the Earth-Goddess herself will wipe that spittle from your face.’ The victims were often kept for years before they were sacrificed. Being regarded as consecrated beings, they were treated with extreme affection, mingled with deference, and were welcomed wherever they went. A Meriāh youth, on attaining maturity, was generally given a wife, who was herself usually a Meriāh or victim, and with her he received a portion of land and farm-stock. Their offspring were also victims. Human sacrifices were offered to the Earth-Goddess by tribes, branches of tribes, or villages, both at periodical festivals and on extraordinary occasions. The periodical sacrifices were generally so arranged by tribes and divisions of tribes that each head of a family was enabled, at least once a year, to procure a shred of flesh for his fields, generally about the time when his chief crop was laid down. The mode of performing these tribal sacrifices was as follows. Ten or twelve days before the sacrifice, the victim was devoted by cutting off his hair, which, until then, had been kept unshorn. Crowds of men and women assembled to witness the sacrifice; none might be excluded, since the sacrifice was declared to be for all mankind. It was preceded by several days of wild revelry and gross debauchery. On the day before the sacrifice the victim, dressed in a new garment, was led forth from the village in solemn procession, with music and dancing, to the Meriāh grove, a clump of high forest trees standing a little way from the village and untouched by the axe. Here they tied him to a post, which was sometimes placed between two plants of the sankissār shrub. He was then anointed with oil, ghee and turmeric, and adorned with flowers; and ‘a species of reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration,’ was paid to him throughout the day.
- 35. A great struggle now arose to obtain the smallest relic from his person; a particle of the turmeric paste with which he was smeared, or a drop of his spittle, was esteemed of sovereign virtue, especially by the women. The crowd danced round the post to music, and addressing the Earth said, ‘O God, we offer this sacrifice to you; give us good crops, seasons, and health.’ “On the last morning the orgies, which had been scarcely interrupted during the night, were resumed and continued till noon, when they ceased, and the assembly proceeded to consummate the sacrifice. The victim was again anointed with oil, and each person touched the anointed part, and wiped the oil on his own head. In some places they took the victim in procession round the village, from door to door, where some plucked hair from his head, and others begged for a drop of his spittle, with which they anointed their heads. As the victim might not be bound nor make any show of resistance, the bones of his arms and, if necessary, his legs were broken; but often this precaution was rendered unnecessary by stupefying him with opium. The mode of putting him to death varied in different places. One of the commonest modes seems to have been strangulation, or squeezing to death. The branch of a green tree was cleft several feet down the middle; the victim’s neck (in other places, his chest) was inserted in the cleft, which the priest, aided by his assistants, strove with all his force to close. Then he wounded the victim slightly with his axe, whereupon the crowd rushed at the wretch and cut the flesh from the bones, leaving the head and bowels untouched. Sometimes he was cut up alive. In Chinna Kimedy he was dragged along the fields, surrounded by the crowd, who, avoiding his head and intestines, hacked the flesh from his body with their knives till he died. Another very common mode of sacrifice in the same district was to fasten the victim to the proboscis of a wooden elephant, which revolved on a stout post, and, as it whirled round, the crowd cut the flesh from the victim while life remained. In some villages Major Campbell found as many as fourteen of these wooden elephants, which had been used at sacrifices.7 In one district the victim was put to death slowly by fire. A low stage was formed, sloping on either side like a roof; upon it they laid the victim, his limbs wound round with cords to confine his struggles. Fires were then lighted and hot brands applied, to make him roll up and down the slopes of the
- 36. stage as long as possible; for the more tears he shed the more abundant would be the supply of rain. Next day the body was cut to pieces. “The flesh cut from the victim was instantly taken home by the persons who had been deputed by each village to bring it. To secure its rapid arrival it was sometimes forwarded by relays of men, and conveyed with postal fleetness fifty or sixty miles. In each village all who stayed at home fasted rigidly until the flesh arrived. The bearer deposited it in the place of public assembly, where it was received by the priest and the heads of families. The priest divided it into two portions, one of which he offered to the Earth- Goddess by burying it in a hole in the ground with his back turned, and without looking. Then each man added a little earth to bury it, and the priest poured water on the spot from a hill gourd. The other portion of flesh he divided into as many shares as there were heads of houses present. Each head of a house rolled his shred of flesh in leaves and buried it in his favourite field, placing it in the earth behind his back without looking. In some places each man carried his portion of flesh to the stream which watered his fields, and there hung it on a pole. For three days thereafter no house was swept; and, in one district, strict silence was observed, no fire might be given out, no wood cut, and no strangers received. The remains of the human victim (namely, the head, bowels and bones) were watched by strong parties the night after the sacrifice, and next morning they were burned along with a whole sheep, on a funeral pile. The ashes were scattered over the fields, laid as paste over the houses and granaries, or mixed with the new corn to preserve it from insects. Sometimes, however, the head and bones were buried, not burnt. After the suppression of the human sacrifices, inferior victims were substituted in some places; for instance, in the capital of Chinna Kimedy a goat took the place of a human victim. “In these Khond sacrifices the Meriāhs are represented by our authorities as victims offered to propitiate the Earth-Goddess. But from the treatment of the victims both before and after death it appears that the custom cannot be explained as merely a propitiatory sacrifice. A part of the flesh certainly was offered to the Earth-Goddess, but the rest of the flesh was buried by each householder in his fields, and the ashes of the other parts of the body were
- 37. scattered over the fields, laid as paste on the granaries, or mixed with the new corn. These latter customs imply that to the body of the Meriāh there was ascribed a direct or intrinsic power of making the crops to grow, quite independent of the indirect efficacy which it might have as an offering to secure the good-will of the deity. In other words, the flesh and ashes of the victim were believed to be endowed with a magical or physical power of fertilising the land. The same intrinsic power was ascribed to the blood and tears of the Meriāh, his blood causing the redness of the turmeric, and his tears producing rain; for it can hardly be doubted that, originally at least, the tears were supposed to bring down the rain, not merely to prognosticate it. Similarly the custom of pouring water on the buried flesh of the Meriāh was no doubt a rain-charm. Again, magical power as an attribute of the Meriāh appears in the sovereign virtue believed to reside in anything that came from his person, as his hair or spittle. The ascription of such power to the Meriāh indicates that he was much more than a mere man sacrificed to propitiate a deity. Once more, the extreme reverence paid him points to the same conclusion. Major Campbell speaks of the Meriāh as ‘being regarded as something more than mortal,’ and Major Macpherson says: ‘A species of reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration, is paid to him.’ In short, the Meriāh appears to have been regarded as divine. As such, he may originally have represented the Earth-Goddess, or perhaps a deity of vegetation, though in later times he came to be regarded rather as a victim offered to a deity than as himself an incarnate god. This later view of the Meriāh as a victim rather than a divinity may perhaps have received undue emphasis from the European writers who have described the Khond religion. Habituated to the later idea of sacrifice as an offering made to a god for the purpose of conciliating his favour, European observers are apt to interpret all religious slaughter in this sense, and to suppose that wherever such slaughter takes place, there must necessarily be a deity to whom the carnage is believed by the slayers to be acceptable. Thus their preconceived ideas unconsciously colour and warp their descriptions of savage rites.”8
- 38. 13. Last human sacrifices. In his Ethnographic Notes in Southern India Mr. Thurston states:9 “The last recorded Meriāh sacrifice in the Ganjam Māliāhs occurred in 1852, and there are still Khonds alive who were present at it. Twenty-five descendants of persons who were reserved for sacrifice, but were rescued by Government officers, returned themselves as Meriāh at the Census of 1901. The Khonds have now substituted a buffalo for a human being. The animal is hewn to pieces while alive, and the villagers rush home to their villages to bury the flesh in the soil, and so secure prosperous crops. The sacrifice is not unaccompanied by risk to the performers, as the buffalo, before dying, frequently kills one or more of its tormentors. It was stated by the officers of the Māliāh Agency that there was reason to believe that the Rāja of Jaipur (Madras), when he was installed at his father’s decease in 1860–61, sacrificed a girl thirteen years of age at the shrine of the Goddess Durga in the town of Jaipur. The last attempted human sacrifice (which was nearly successful) in the Vizagāpatam District, among the Kutia Khonds, was, I believe, in 1880. But the memory of the abandoned practice is kept green by one of the Khond songs, for a translation of which we are indebted to Mr. J. E. Friend-Pereira:10 At the time of the great Kiābon (Campbell) Sāhib’s coming, the country was in darkness; it was enveloped in mist. Having sent paiks to collect the people of the land, they, having surrounded them, caught the Meriāh sacrificers. Having caught the Meriāh sacrificers, they brought them; and again they went and seized the evil councillors. Having seen the chains and shackles, the people were afraid; murder and bloodshed were quelled. Then the land became beautiful; and a certain Mokodella (Macpherson) Sāhib came. He destroyed the lairs of the tigers and bears in the hills and rocks, and taught wisdom to the people. After the lapse of a month he built bungalows and schools; and he advised them to learn reading and law.
- 39. They learnt wisdom and reading; they acquired silver and gold. Then all the people became wealthy. 14. Khond rising in 1882. In 1882 an armed rising of the Khonds of the Kālāhandi State occurred as a result of agrarian trouble. The Feudatory Chief had encouraged the settlement in the State of members of the Kolta caste who are excellent cultivators and keenly acquisitive of land. They soon got the Khonds heavily indebted to them for loans of food and seed-grain, and began to oust them from their villages. The Khonds, recognising with some justice that this process was likely to end in their total expropriation from the soil, concerted a conspiracy, and in May 1882 rose and murdered the Koltas of a number of villages. The signal for the outbreak was given by passing a knotted string from village to village; other signals were a bent arrow and a branch of a mahua tree. When the Khond leaders were assembled an axe was thrown on to the ground and each of them grasping it in turn swore to join in the rising and support his fellows. The taint of cruelty in the tribe is shown by the fact that the Kutia Khonds, on being requested to join in the rising, replied that if plunder was the only object they would not do so, but if the Koltas were to be murdered they agreed. Some of the murdered Koltas were anointed with turmeric and offered at temples, the Khonds calling them their goats, and in one case a Kolta is believed to have been made a Meriāh sacrifice to the earth god. The Khonds appeared before the police, who were protecting a body of refugees at the village of Norla, with the hair and scalps of their murdered victims tied to their bows. To the Political Officer, who was sent to suppress the rising, the Khonds complained that the Koltas had degraded them from the position of lords of the soil to that of servants, and justified their plundering of the Koltas on the ground that they were merely taking back the produce of their own land, which the Koltas had stolen from them. They said that if they were not to have back their land Government might either drive them out of the country
- 40. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 or exterminate them, and that Koltas and Khonds could no more live together than tigers and goats. Another grievance was that a new Rāja of Kālāhandi had been installed without their consent having been obtained. The Political Officer, Mr. Berry, hanged seven of the Khond ringleaders and effected a settlement of their grievances. Peace was restored and has not since been broken. At a later date in the same year, 1882, and independently of the rising, a Khond landholder was convicted and executed for having offered a five-year-old girl as a Meriāh sacrifice. 15. Language. The Khond or Kandh language, called Kui by the Khonds themselves, is spoken by rather more than half of the total body of the tribe. It is much more nearly related to Telugu than is Gondi and has no written character.11 Kandh is the Uriya spelling, and Kond or Khond that of the Telugus. Linguistic Survey of India. Narsingha means a man-lion and is one of Vishnu’s incarnations; this subsept would seem, therefore, to have been formed since the Khonds adopted Hinduism. In Orissa, however, relationship through females is a bar to marriage, as recorded in Sir H. Risley’s article. Report on the Khonds, p. 56. Report, p. 59. Sir H. Risley notes that the elephant represented the earth-goddess herself, who was here conceived in elephant form. In the hill tracts of Gumsur she was represented in peacock form, and the post to which the victim was bound bore the effigy of a peacock. Macpherson also records that when the Khonds attacked the victim they shouted, ‘No sin rests on us; we have bought you with a price.’ Golden Bough, 2nd ed. vol. ii. p. 241 sq.
- 41. 9 10 11 Pages 517–519. Published 1906. Journal, A. S. of Bengal, 1898. Sir G. A. Grierson’s Linguistic Survey, Munda and Dravidian Languages.
- 42. Kīr 1. Origin and Traditions. Kīr.1—A cultivating caste found principally in the Hoshangābād District. They numbered about 7000 persons in 1911. The Kīrs claim to have come from the Jaipur State, and this is borne out by the fact that they still retain a dialect of Mārwāri, though they have been living among the Hindi-speaking population of Hoshangābād for several generations. According to their traditions they immigrated into the Central Provinces when Rāja Mān was ruling at Jaipur. He was a contemporary of Akbar’s and died in A.D. 1615.2 This story tallies with Colonel Sleeman’s statement that the first important influx of Hindus into the Nerbudda valley took place in the time of Akbar.3 The Kīrs are akin to the Kirārs, and at the India Census of 1901 were amalgamated with them. Like the Kirārs they claim to be descended from the mythical Rāja Karan of Jaipur. Their story is that on a summer day Mahādeo and Pārvati created a melon-garden, and Mahādeo made a man and a woman out of a piece of kusha grass (Eragrostis cynosuroides) to tend the garden. From these the Kīrs are descended. The name may possibly be a corruption of karar, a river-bank. 2. Marriage.
- 43. The Kīrs have no endogamous divisions. For the purpose of marriage the caste is divided into 12½ gotras or sections. A man must not marry within his own gotra or in that to which his mother belonged. The names of the 12 gotras are as follows: Namchuria, Daima, Bania, Bāman, Nāyar, Jāt, Huwād, Gādri, Lohāria, Hekdya, Mochi and Māli, while the half-gotra contains the Bhāts or genealogists of the caste, who are not allowed to marry with the other subdivisions and have now formed one of their own. Of the twelve names of gotras at least seven—Bāman (Brāhman), Bania, Māli, Mochi, Gādri (Gadaria), Lohāria and Jāt—are derived from other castes, and this fact is sufficient to show that the origin of the Kīrs is occupational, and that they are made up of recruits from different castes. Infant-marriage is customary, but no penalty is incurred if a girl remains unmarried after puberty. Only the poorest members of the caste, however, fail to marry their daughters at an early age. For the marriage of girls who are left unprovided for, a subscription is raised among the caste-fellows in accordance with the usual Hindu practice, the giving of money for this purpose being considered to be an especially pious act. At the time of the betrothal a bride-price called chāri, varying between Rs. 14 and Rs. 20, is paid by the boy’s father, and the deed of betrothal, called lagan, is then drawn up in the presence of the caste panchāyat who are regaled with liquor purchased out of the bride-price. A peculiarity of the marriage ceremony is that the bridegroom is taken to the bride’s house riding on a buffalo. This custom is noteworthy, since other Hindus will not usually ride on a buffalo, as being the animal on which Yama, the god of death, rides. After the marriage the bride returns to the bridegroom’s house with the wedding party and stays there for eight days, during which period she worships the family gods of her father-in-law’s house. The cost of the marriage is usually Rs. 60 for the boy’s party and Rs. 40 for the girl’s. But a widower on his remarriage has to spend double this sum. The ceremonies called Gauna and Rauna are both performed after the marriage. The former generally takes place within a year, the bride being dressed in special new clothes called bes, and sent with ceremony to her husband’s house on an auspicious day fixed by a Brāhman. She remains there for two months and the marriage is consummated, when she returns to her father’s house. Four months afterwards the bridegroom again goes to fetch her and takes her away permanently, this being the Rauna ceremony. No social stigma attaches to
- 44. polygamy, and divorce is allowed on the usual grounds. Widow-marriage is permitted, the ceremony consisting in giving new clothes and ornaments to the widow and feeding the Panch for a day. 3. Religion. The caste worships especially Bhairon and Devi, and each section of it reveres a special incarnation of Devi, and the Bhairon of some particular village. Thus, for instance, the Namchurias worship the goddess Pārvati and the Bhairon of Jaria Gowāra; the Bania, Nāyar, Hekdya and Mochi septs worship Chāmunda Māta and the Bhairon of Jaipur, and so on. Members of the caste get triangular, rectangular or round pieces of silver impressed with the images of these gods, and wear them suspended by a thread from their necks. A similar respect is paid to the Ahut or the spirit of a relative who has met with a violent death or died without progeny or as a bachelor, the spirits of such persons being always prone to trouble their living relatives. In order to appease them songs are sung in their praise on important festivals, the members of the family staying awake the whole night, and wearing their images on a silver piece round the neck. When they eat and drink they first touch the food with the image by way of offering it to the dead, so that their spirits may be appeased and refrain from harassing the living. Kīrs revere and worship the cow and the pīpal tree. No Kīr may sell a cow to a butcher. A man who is about to die makes a present of a cow to a Brāhman or a temple in order that by catching hold of the tail of this cow he may be able to cross the horrible river Vaitarni, the Styx of Hinduism, which bars the passage to the nether regions. The Kīrs believe in magic, and some members of the caste profess to cure snake-bite. The poison-curer, when sent for, has a small space cleared and plastered with cowdung, on which he draws lines with wheat flour. A new earthen pot is then brought and placed over the drawing. On the pot the operator draws a figure of Hanumān in vermilion, and another figure on the nearest wall facing the pot. A brass plate is put over the pot and the person who has been bitten by the snake is
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