Gowari.1—The herdsman or grazier caste of the Maratha country, corresponding to the Ahirs or Gaolis. The name is derived from gai or gao, the cow, and means a cowherd. The Gowaris numbered more than 150,000 persons in 1911, of whom nearly 120,000 belonged to the Nagpur division and nearly 30,000 to Berar. In localities where the Gowaris predominate, Ahirs or Gaolis, the regular herdsman caste, are found only in small numbers. The honorific title of the Gowaris is Dhare, which is said to mean ‘One who keeps cattle.’ The Gowaris rank distinctly below the Ahirs or Gaolis. The legend of their origin is that an Ahir, who was tending the cows of Krishna, stood in need of a helper. He found a small boy in the forest and took him home and brought him up. He then gave to the boy the work of grazing cows in the jungle, while he himself stayed at home and made milk and butter. This boy was the ancestor of the Gowari caste. His descendants took to eating fowls and peacocks and drinking liquor, and hence were degraded below the Gaolis. But the latter will allow Gowaris to sit at their feasts and eat, they will carry the corpse of a Gowari to the grave, and they will act as members of the panchayat in readmitting a Gowari who has been put out of caste. In the Maratha country any man who touches the corpse of a man of another caste is temporarily excommunicated, and the fact that a Gaoli will do this for a Gowari demonstrates the close relationship of the castes. The legend, in fact, indicates quite clearly and correctly the origin of the Gowaris. The small boy in the forest was a Gond, and the Gowari caste is of mixed descent from Ahirs and Gonds. The Ahirs or Gaolis of the Maratha country have largely abandoned the work of grazing cattle in the forest, and have taken to the more profitable business of making milk and ghi. The herdsman’s duties have been relegated to the mixed class of Gowaris, produced from the unions of Ahirs and Gonds in the forests, and not improbably including a considerable section of pure Gond blood. At present only Gaolis and no other caste are admitted into the Gowari community, though there is evidence that the rule was not formerly so strict.

The Gowaris have three divisions, the Gai Gowari, Inga, and Maria or Gond Gowari. The Gai or cow Gowaris are the highest and probably have more Gaoli blood in them. The Inga and Maria or Gond Gowaris are more directly derived from the Gonds. Maria is the name given to a large section of the Gond tribe in Chanda. Both the other two subcastes will take cooked food from the Gai Gowaris and the Gond Gowaris from the Inga, but the Inga subcaste will not take it from the Gond, nor the Gai Gowaris from either of the other two. The Gond Gowaris have been treated as a distinct caste and a separate article is given on them, but at the census Mr. Marten has amalgamated them with the Gowaris. This is probably more correct, as they are locally held to be a branch of the caste. But their customs differ in some points from those of the other Gowaris. They will admit outsiders from any respectable caste and worship the Gond gods,2 and there seems no harm, therefore, in allowing the separate article on them to remain.

The Gowaris have exogamous sections of the titular and totemistic types, such as Chachania from chachan, a bird, Lohar from loha iron, Ambadare a mango-branch, Kohria from the Kohri or Kohli caste, Sarwaina a Gond sept, and Rawat the name of the Ahir caste in Chhattisgarh. Some septs do not permit intermarriage between their members, saying that they are Dudh-Bhais or foster-brothers, born from the same mother. Thus the Chachania, Kohria, Senwaria, Sendua (vermilion) and Wagare (tiger) septs cannot intermarry. They say that their fathers were different, but their mothers were related or one and the same. This is apparently a relic of polyandry, and it is possible that in some cases the Gonds may have allowed Ahirs sojourning in the forest to have access to their wives during the period of their stay. If this was permitted to Ahirs of different sections coming to the same Gond village in successive years, the offspring might be the ancestors of sections who consider themselves to be related to each other in the manner of the Gowari sections.

Marriage is prohibited within the same section or kur, and between sections related to each other as Dudh-Bhais in the manner explained above. A man can marry his daughter to his sister’s son, but cannot take her daughter for his son. The children of two sisters cannot be married.

Girls are usually married after attaining maturity, and a bride-price is paid which is normally two khandis (800 lbs.) of grain, Rs. 16 to 20 in cash, and a piece of cloth. The auspicious date of the wedding is calculated by a Mahar Mohturia or soothsayer. Brahmans are not employed, the ceremony being performed by the bhanya or sister’s son of either the girl’s father or the boy’s father. If he is not available, any one whom either the girl’s father or the boy’s father addresses as bhanja or nephew in the village, according to the common custom of addressing each other by terms of relationship, even though he may be no relative and belong to another caste, may be substituted; and if no such person is available a son-in-law of either of the parties. The peculiar importance thus attached to the sister’s son as a relation is probably a relic of the matriarchate, when a man’s sister’s son was his heir. The substitution of a son-in-law who might inherit in the absence of a sister’s son perhaps strengthens this view. The wedding is held mainly according to the Maratha ritual.3 The procession goes to the girl’s house, and the bridegroom is wrapped in a blanket and carries a spear, in the absence of which the wedding cannot be held. A spear is also essential among the Gonds. The ancestors of the caste are invited to the wedding by beating a drum and calling on them to attend. The original ancestors are said to be Kode Kodwan, the names of two Gond gods, Baghoba (the tiger-god), and Meghnath, son of Rawan, the demon king of Ceylon, after whom the Gonds are called Rawanvansi, or descendants of Rawan. The wedding costs about Rs. 50, all of which is spent by the boy’s father. The girl’s father only gives a feast to the caste out of the amount which he receives as bride-price. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted.

The dead are either buried or burnt, burial being more common. The corpse is laid with head to the south and feet to the north. On returning from the funeral they go and drink at the liquor-shop, and then kill a cock on the spot where the deceased died, and offer some meat to his spirit, placing it outside the house. The caste-fellows sit and wait until a crow comes and pecks at the food, when they think that the deceased has enjoyed it, and begin to eat themselves. If no crow comes before night the food may be given to a cow, and the party can then begin to eat. When the next wedding is held in the family, the deceased is brought down from the skies and enshrined among the deified ancestors.

The principal deities of the Gowaris are the Kode Kodwan or deified ancestors. They are worshipped at the annual festivals, and also at weddings. When a man or woman dies without children their spirits are known as Dhal, and are worshipped in the families to which they belonged. A male Dhal is represented by a stick of bamboo with one cross-piece at the top, and a female Dhal by a stick with two others crossing each other lashed to it at the top. These sticks are worshipped at the Diwali festival, and carried in procession. Dudhera is a godling worshipped for the protection of cattle. He is represented by a clay horse placed near a white ant-hill. If a cow stops giving milk her udder is smoked with the burning wood of a tree called sanwal, and this is supposed to drive away the spirits who drink the milk from the udder. All Gowaris revere the haryal, or green pigeon. They say that it gives a sound like a Gowari calling his cows, and that it is a kinsman. They would on no account kill this bird. They say that the cows will go to a tree from which green pigeons are cooing, and that on one occasion when a thief was driving away their cows a green pigeon cooed from a tree, and the cows turned round and came back again. This is like the story of the sacred geese at Rome, who gave warning of the attack of the Goths.

The head of the caste committee is known as Shendia, from shendi, a scalp-lock or pig-tail, perhaps because he is at the top of the caste as the scalp-lock is at the top of the head. The Shendia is elected, and holds office for life. He has to readmit offenders into caste by being the first to eat and drink with them, thus taking their sins on himself. On such occasions it is necessary to have a little opium, which is mixed with sugar and water, and distributed to all members of the caste. If the quantity is insufficient for every one to drink, the man responsible for preparing it is fined, and this mixture, especially the opium, is indispensable on all such occasions. The custom indicates that a sacred or sacrificial character is attributed to the opium, as the drinking of the mixture together is the sign of the readmission of a temporary outcaste into the community. After this has been drunk he becomes a member of the caste, even though he may not give the penalty feast for some time afterwards. The Ahirs and Sunars of the Maratha country have the same rite of purification by the common drinking of opium and water. A caste penalty is incurred for the removal of bital or impurity arising from the usual offences, and among others for touching the corpse of a man of any other caste, or of a buffalo, horse, cow, cat or dog, for using abusive language to a casteman at any meeting or feast, and for getting up from a caste feast without permission from the headman. For touching the corpse of a prohibited animal and for going to jail a man has to get his head, beard and whiskers shaved. If a woman becomes with child by a man of another caste, she is temporarily expelled, but can be readmitted after the child has been born and she has disposed of it to somebody else. Such children are often made over for a few rupees to Muhammadans, who bring them up as menial servants in their families, or, if they have no child of their own, sometimes adopt them. On readmission a lock of the woman’s hair is cut off. In the same case, if no child is born of the liaison, the woman is taken back with the simple penalty of a feast. Permanent expulsion is imposed for taking food from, or having an intrigue with a member of an impure caste as Madgi, Mehtar, Pardhan, Mahar and Mang.

The Gowaris eat pork, fowls, rats, lizards and peacocks, and abstain only from beef and the flesh of monkeys, crocodiles and jackals. They will take food from a Mana, Marar or Kohli, and water from a Gond. Kunbis will take water from them, and Gonds, Dhimars and Dhobis will accept cooked food. All Gowari men are tattooed with a straight vertical line on the forehead, and many of them have the figures of a peacock, deer or horse on the right shoulder or on both shoulders. A man without the mark on the forehead will scarcely be admitted to be a true Gowari, and would have to prove his birth before he was allowed to join a caste feast. Women are tattooed with a pattern of straight and crooked lines on the right arm below the elbow, which they call Sita’s arm. They have a vertical line standing on a horizontal one on the forehead, and dots on the temples.