The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV | Page 8

because, like the pig in Greece, he was most destructive to
the crops, and a buffalo was originally slaughtered and eaten
sacramentally as an act of worship. At a later period the divinity
attaching to the corn was transferred to Devi, an anthropomorphic deity
of a higher class, and in order to explain the customary slaughter of the
buffalo, which had to be retained, the story became current that the

beneficent goddess fought and slew the buffalo-demon which injured
the crops, for the benefit of her worshippers, and the fast was observed
and the buffalo sacrificed in commemoration of this event. It is possible
that the sacrifice of the buffalo may have been a non-Aryan rite, as the
Mundas still offer a buffalo to Deswali, their forest god, in the sacred
grove; and the Korwas of Sarguja nave periodical sacrifices to Kali in
which many buffaloes are slaughtered. In the pictures of her fight with
Bhainsasur, Devi is shown as riding on a tiger, and the uneducated
might imagine the struggle to have resembled that between a tiger and a
buffalo. As the destroyer of buffaloes and deer which graze on the
crops the tiger may even be considered the cultivator's friend. But in
the rural tracts Bhainsasur himself is still venerated in the guise of a
corn-deity, and pig are perhaps offered to him as the animals which
nowadays do most harm to the crops.

Kunbi
[This article is based on the information collected for the District
Gazetteers of the Central Provinces, manuscript notes furnished by Mr.
A.K. Smith, C.S., and from papers by Pandit Pyare Lal Misra and
Munshi Kanhya Lal. The Kunbis are treated in the Poona and
Khandesh volumes of the Bombay Gazetteer. The caste has been taken
as typical of the Marathi-speaking Districts, and a fairly full description
of the marriage and other ceremonies has therefore been given, some
information on houses, dress and food being also reproduced from the
Wardha and Yeotmal District Gazetteers.]

List of Paragraphs
1. Distribution of the caste and origin of name. 2. Settlement in the
Central Provinces. 3. Sub castes. 4. The cultivating status. 5.
Exogamous septs. 6. Restrictions on marriage of relatives. 7. Betrothal
and marriage. 8. Polygamy and divorce. 9. Widow-marriage. 10.
Customs at birth. 11. Sixth- and twelfth-day ceremonies. 12. Devices
for procuring children. 13. Love charms. 14. Disposal of the dead. 15.

Mourning. 16. Religion. 17. The Pola festival. 18. Muhammadan
tendencies of Berar Kunbis. 19. Villages and houses. 20. Furniture. 21.
Food. 22. Clothes and ornaments. 23. The Kunbi as cultivator. 24.
Social and moral characteristics.

1. Distribution of the caste and origin of name
Kunbi--The great agricultural caste of the Maratha country. In the
Central Provinces and Berar the Kunbis numbered nearly 1,400,000
persons in 1911; they belong to the Nagpur, Chanda, Bhandara,
Wardha, Nimar and Betul Districts of the Central Provinces. In Berar
their strength was 800,000, or nearly a third of the total population.
Here they form the principal cultivating class over the whole area
except in the jungles of the north and south, but muster most strongly in
the Buldana District to the west, where in some taluks nearly half the
population belongs to the Kunbi caste. In the combined Province they
are the most numerous caste except the Gonds. The name has various
forms in Bombay, being Kunbi or Kulambi in the Deccan, Kulwadi in
the south Konkan, Kanbi in Gujarat, and Kulbi in Belgaum. In Sanskrit
inscriptions it is given as Kutumbika (householder), and hence it has
been derived from kutumba, a family. A chronicle of the eleventh
century quoted by Forbes speaks of the Kutumbiks or cultivators of the
grams, or small villages. [13] Another writer describing the early
Rajput dynasties says: [14] "The villagers were Koutombiks
(householders) or husbandmen (Karshuks); the village headmen were
Putkeels (patels)." Another suggested derivation is from a Dravidian
root kul a husbandman or labourer; while that favoured by the caste and
their neighbours is from kun, a root, or kan grain, and bi, seed; but this
is too ingenious to be probable.

2. Settlement in the Central Provinces
It is stated that the Kunbis entered Khandesh from Gujarat in the
eleventh century, being forced to leave Gujarat by the encroachments
of Rajput tribes, driven south before the early Muhammadan invaders

of northern India. [15] From Khandesh they probably spread into Berar
and the adjoining Nagpur and Wardha Districts. It seems probable that
their first settlement in Nagpur and Wardha took place not later than
the fourteenth century, because during the subsequent period of Gond
rule we find the offices of Deshmukh and Deshpandia in existence in
this area. The Deshmukh was the manager or headman of a circle of
villages and was responsible for apportioning and collecting the land
revenue,