Injhwar.1—A caste of agricultural labourers and fishermen found in the Maratha tract of the Wainganga Valley, comprised in the Bhandara and Balaghat Districts. In 1901 they numbered 8500 persons as against 11,000 in 1891. The name Injhwar is simply a Marathi corruption of Binjhwar, as is for bis (twenty) and Ithoba for Bithoba or Vithoba. In his Census Report of 1891 Sir Benjamin Robertson remarked that the name was often entered in the census books as Vinjhwar, and in Marathi B and V are practically interchangeable. The Injhwars are thus a caste formed from the Binjhwars or highest subdivision of the Baiga tribe of Balaghat; they have adopted the social customs of the Marathi-speaking people among whom they live, and have been formed into a separate caste through a corruption of their name. They still worship Injha or Vindhya Devi, the tutelary deity of the Vindhyan hills, from which the name of the Binjhwars is derived. The Injhwars have also some connection with the Gowari or cowherd caste of the Maratha country. They are sometimes known as Dudh-Gowari, and say that this is because an Injhwar woman was a wet-nurse of the first-born Gowari. The Gowaris themselves, as a low caste of herdsmen frequenting the jungles, would naturally be brought into close connection with both the Baigas and Gonds. Their alliances with the Gonds have produced the distinct caste of Gond-Gowari, and it is not improbable that one fact operating to separate the Injhwars from their parent tribe of the Baigas was an admixture of Gowari blood. But they rank higher than the Gond-Gowaris, who are regarded as impure; this is probably on account of the superior position of the Binjhwars, who form the aristocracy of the Baiga tribe, and, living in the forests, were never reduced to the menial and servile condition imposed on the Gond residents in Hindu villages. The Injhwars, however, admit the superiority of the Gowaris by taking food from their hands, a favour which the latter will not reciprocate. Several of the sept or family names of the caste are also taken from the Gonds, and this shows an admixture of Gond blood; the Injhwars are thus probably a mixed group of Gonds, Gowaris, and Binjhwars or Baigas.

The Injhwars have four subcastes, three of the territorial and one of the occupational class. These are the Lanjiwar, or those living round Lanji in Balaghat; the Korre, or those of the Korai hill tract in Seoni; the Chandewar or Maratha Injhwars who belong to Chanda, and are distinguished by holding their weddings only in the evening after the Maratha custom, while other Injhwars will perform the ceremony at any time of day; and the Sonjharias, or those who have taken to washing for gold in the beds of streams. Of their sept or family names some, as already stated, are taken from the Gonds, as Mesram, Tekam, Marai, Ukya.2 Three names, Bhoyar, Kawara and Kohrya (from Kohli), are the names of other castes or tribes, and indicate that members of these became Injhwars and founded families; and others are of the territorial, titular and totemistic types. Among them may be mentioned the Pithvalyas, from pith, flour; all families of this sept should steal a little rice from somebody else’s field as soon as it is ripe, husband and wife making a joint expedition for the purpose. They must not speak a word to each other from the time they start until they have brought back the rice, pounded and cooked it, offered it to the god and made their meal. The Paunpats, named after the lotus, will not touch the flowers or leaves of the lotus plants, or even drink water from a tank in which the lotus grows. The Dobokria Rawats are so named because they make an offering of two goats to their gods. Some of the septs are subdivided. Thus the Sonwani or gold-water sept, whose members readmit social culprits, is divided into the Paunpat or lotus Sonwanis; the Gurhiwal, who revere a brass vessel tied to a bamboo on the first day of the year; the Sati Sonwani, who worship the spirit of a sati woman ancestor; and the Mungphatia Sonwanis, whose token is the broken mung pulse. At present these subsepts cannot intermarry, the union of any two Sonwanis being forbidden, but it seems likely that intermarriage may be permitted in the course of time.

The social customs of the Injhwars resemble those of the lower Maratha castes.3 Marriage is forbidden between members of the same sept and first cousins, and a man should also not take a wife from the sept of his brother or sister-in-law. This rule prevents the marriage of two brothers to two sisters, to which there is of course no objection on the ground of affinity. Girls are usually not married until they are grown up; but in places where they have been much subjected to Hindu influences, the Injhwars will sometimes wed an adult girl to a basil plant in order to avoid the stigma of keeping her in the house unmarried. The boy’s father goes to make a proposal of marriage, and the girl’s father, if he approves it, intimates his consent by washing his visitor’s feet. A bride-price of about Rs. 20 is usually paid, which is increased somewhat if the bridegroom is a widower, and decreased if the bride has been seduced before marriage. The marriage is performed by throwing coloured rice over the couple. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. A bachelor who marries a widow must first go through the ceremony with an arka or swallow-wort plant, this being considered his real marriage. The Injhwars usually bury the dead, and in accordance with Dravidian custom place the corpse in the grave with the feet to the north. When the body is that of a young girl, the face is left exposed as it is carried to the grave. The regular ceremonies are performed for the welfare of the deceased’s soul, and they try to ascertain its fate in the next incarnation by spreading flour on the ground overnight and looking in the morning for anything resembling the foot-mark of a human being, animal or bird. On the festival of Akhatij and in the month of Kartik (October) they offer libations to the dead, setting out a large pitcher of water for a male and a small one for a female. On the former they paint five lines of sandalwood to represent a man’s caste-mark, and on the latter five splashes of kunku or the red powder which women rub on their foreheads. A burning lamp is placed before the pitchers, and they feed a male Mali or gardener as representative of a dead man and a female for a woman.

The Injhwars are generally labourers and cultivators, while the Sonjharias wash for gold. The women of the Maratha or Chandewar subcaste serve as midwives. Their social status is low, and in the forest tracts they will eat snakes and crocodiles, and in fact almost anything except beef. They will admit members of the Brahman, Dhimar (waterman), Mali and Gowari castes into the community on payment of a premium of five to fifteen rupees and a dinner to the caste-fellows. The candidate for admission, whether male or female, must have his head shaved clean. Both men and women can obtain pardon for a liaison with an outsider belonging to any except the most impure castes by giving a feast to the community. To be beaten with a shoe involves temporary excommunication from caste, unless the striker be a Government official, when no penalty is inflicted. If a man kills a cat, he is required to have an image of it made in silver, which, after being worshipped, is presented to a temple or thrown into a river.