Kohli.—A small caste of cultivators found in the Marathi-speaking tracts of the Wainganga Valley, comprised in the Bhandara and Chanda Districts. They numbered about 26,000 persons in 1911. The Kohlis are a notable caste as being the builders of the great irrigation reservoirs or tanks, for which the Wainganga Valley is celebrated. The water is used for irrigating rice and sugarcane, the latter being the favourite crop of the Kohlis. The origin of the caste is somewhat doubtful. The name closely resembles that of the Koiri caste of market-gardeners in northern India; and the terms Kohiri and Kohli are used there as variations of the caste name Koiri. The caste themselves have a tradition that they were brought to Bhandara from Benares by one of the Gond kings of Chanda on his return from a visit to that place;1 and the Kohlis of Bhandara say that their first settlement in the Central Provinces was at Lanji, which lies north of Bhandara in Balaghat. But on the other hand all that is known of their language, customs, and sept or family names points to a purely Maratha origin, the caste being in all these respects closely analogous to the Kunbis. The Settlement Officer of Chanda, Colonel Lucie Smith, stated that they thought their forefathers came from the south. They tie their head-cloths in a similar fashion to the Gandlis, who are oilmen from the Telugu country. If they belonged to the south of India they might be an offshoot from the well-known Koli tribe of Bombay, and this hypothesis appears the more probable. As a general rule castes from northern India settling in the Maratha country have not completely abandoned their ancestral language and customs even after a residence of several centuries. In the case of such castes as the Panwars and Bhoyars their foreign extraction can be detected at once; and if the Kohlis had come from Hindustan the rule would probably hold good with them. On the other hand the Kolis have in some parts of Bombay now taken to cultivation and closely resemble the Kunbis. In Satara it is said2 that they associate and occasionally eat with Kunbis, and their social and religious customs resemble those of the Kunbi caste. They are quiet, orderly, settled and hard-working. Besides fishing they work ferries along the Krishna, are employed in villages as water-carriers, and grow melons in river-beds with much skill. The Kolis of Bombay are presumably the same tribe as the Kols of Chota Nagpur, and they probably migrated to Gujarat along the Vindhyan plateau, where they are found in considerable numbers, and over the hills of Rajputana and Central India. The Kols are one of the most adaptive of all the non-Aryan tribes, and when they reached the sea they may have become fishermen and boatmen, and practised these callings also in rivers. From plying on rivers they might take to cultivating melons and garden-crops on the stretches of silt left uncovered in their beds in the dry season, which is the common custom of the boating and fishing castes. And from this, as seen in Satara, some of them attained to regular cultivation and, modelling themselves on the Kunbis, came to have nearly the same status. They may thus have migrated to Chanda and Bhandara with the Kunbis, as their language and customs would indicate, and retaining their preference for irrigated and garden-crops have become expert growers of sugarcane. The description which has been received of the Kohlis of Bhandara would be rather favourable than otherwise to the hypothesis of their ultimate origin from the Kol tribe, allowing for their having acquired the Maratha language and customs from a lengthened residence in Bombay. It has been mentioned above that the Kohlis have a legend of their ancestors having come from Benares, but this story appears to be not infrequently devised as a means of obtaining increased social estimation, Benares being the principal centre of orthodox Hinduism. Thus the Dangris, a small caste of vegetable- and melon-growers who are certainly an offshoot of the Kunbis, and therefore of Maratha extraction, have the same story. As regards the tradition of the Bhandara Kohlis that their first settlement was at Lanji, this may well have been the case even though they came from the south, as Lanji was an important place and a centre of administration under the Marathas. It is probable, however, that they first came to Chanda and from here spread north to Lanji, as, if they had entered Bhandara through Wardha and Nagpur, some of them would probably have remained in these Districts.

The Kohlis have no subcastes. They are divided into the usual exogamous groups or septs with the object of preventing marriages between relations, and these have Marathi names of the territorial or titular type. Among them may be mentioned Handifode (one who breaks a cooking vessel), Sahre (from shahar, a town), Nagpure (from Nagpur), Shende (from shend, cowdung), Parwate (from parwat, mountain), Hatwade (an obstinate man), Mungus-mare (one who killed a mongoose), Pustode (one who broke a bullock’s tail), and so on. Marriage within the sept is prohibited. A brother’s daughter may be married to his sister’s son, but not vice versa. Girls are usually wedded before arriving at adolescence, more especially as there is a great demand for brides. Like other castes engaged in spade cultivation, the Kohlis marry two or more wives when they can afford it, a wife being a more willing servant than a hired labourer, apart from the other advantages. If his wives do not get on together, the Kohli gives them separate huts in his courtyard, where each lives and cooks her meals for herself. He will also allot them separate tasks, assigning to one the care of his household affairs, to another the watching of his sugarcane plot, and so on. If he does this successfully the wives are kept well at work and have not time to quarrel. It is said that whenever a Kohli has a bountiful harvest he looks out for another wife. This naturally leads to a scarcity of women and the payment of a substantial bride-price. The recognised amount is Rs. 30, but this is only formal, and from Rs. 50 to Rs. 150 may be given according to the attractions of the girl, the largest sum being paid for a woman of full age who can go and live with her husband at once. As a consequence of this state of things poor men are sometimes unable to get wives at all. Though they pay highly for their wives the Kohlis are averse to extravagant expenditure on weddings, and all marriages in a village are generally celebrated on the same day once a year, the number of guests at each being thus necessarily restricted. The officiating Brahman ascends the roof of a house and, after beating a brass dish to warn the parties, repeats the marriage texts as the sun goes down. At this moment all the couples place garlands of flowers on each other’s shoulders, each bridegroom ties the mangal-sutram or necklace of black beads round his bride’s neck, and the weddings are completed. The bride’s brother winds a thread round the marriage crowns of the couple and is given two rupees for untying it. The services of a Brahman are not indispensable, and an elder of the caste may officiate as priest. Next day the barber and washerman take the bridegroom and bride in their arms and dance, holding them, to the accompaniment of music, while the women throw red rose-powder over the couple. At their weddings the Kohlis make models in wood of a Chamar’s rampi or knife and khurpa or scraper, this custom perhaps indicating some connection with the Chamars; or it may have arisen simply on account of the important assistance rendered by the Chamar to the cultivation of sugarcane, in supplying the mot or leather bag for raising water from the well. After the wedding is over a string of hemp from a cot is tied round the necks of the pair, and their maternal uncles then run and offer it at the shrine of Marai Mata, the goddess of cholera. Widows with any remains of youth or personal attractions always marry again, the ceremony being held at midnight according to the customary ritual of the Maratha Districts.3 Sometimes the husband does not attend at all, and the widow is united to a sword or dagger as representing him. Otherwise the widow may be conducted to her new husband’s house by five other widows, and in this case they halt at a stream by the way and the bangles and beads are broken from off her neck and wrists. On account, perhaps, of the utility of their wives, and the social temptations which beset them from being continually abroad at work, the Kohlis are lenient to conjugal offences, and a woman going wrong even with an outsider will be taken back by her husband and only a trifling punishment imposed by the caste. A Kohli can also keep a woman of any other caste, except of those regarded as impure, without incurring any censure. Divorce is very seldom resorted to and involves severe penalties to both parties. As among the Panwars, a wife retains any property she may bring to her husband and her wedding gifts at her own disposal, this separate portion being known as khamora. The caste burn their dead when they can afford it, placing the head of the corpse to the north on the pyre. The bodies of those who have died from cholera or smallpox are buried. Like the Panwars it is the custom of the Kohlis on bathing after a funeral to have a meal of cakes and sugar on the river-bank, a practice which is looked down on by orthodox Hindus. After a month or so the deceased person is considered to be united to the ancestors, and when he was the head of the family his successor is inducted to the position by the presentation of a new head-cloth and a silver bangle. The bereaved family are then formally escorted to the weekly market and are considered to have resumed their regular social relations. The Kohlis revere the ordinary Hindu deities, and on the day of Dasahra they worship their axe, sickle and ploughshare by washing them and making an offering of rice, flowers and turmeric. The axe is no doubt included because it serves to cut the wood for fencing the sugarcane garden.

The Kohlis were the builders of the great tanks of the Bhandara District. The most important of these are Nawegaon with an area of five square miles and a circumference of seventeen, and Seoni, over seven miles round, while smaller tanks are counted by thousands. Though the largest are the work of the Kohlis, many of the others have been constructed by the Panwars of this tract, who have also much aptitude for irrigation. Built as they were without technical engineering knowledge, the tanks form an enduring monument to the native ability and industry of these enterprising cultivators. “Working,” Mr. Danks remarks,4 “without instruments, unable even to take a level, finding out their mistakes by the destruction of the works they had built, ever repairing, reconstructing, altering, they have raised in every village a testimony to their wisdom, their industry and their perseverance.” Although Nawegaon tank has a water area of seven square miles, the combined length of the two artificial embankments is only 760 yards, and this demonstrates the great skill with which the site has been selected. At some of the tanks men are stationed day and night during the rainy season to see if the embankment is anywhere weakened by the action of the water, and in that case to give the alarm to the village by beating a drum. The Nawegaon tank is said to have been built at the commencement of the eighteenth century by one Kolu Patel Kohli. As might be expected, Kolu Patel has been deified as Kolasur Deo, and his shrine is on one of the peaks surrounding the tank. Seven other peaks are known as the Sat Bahini or ‘Seven Sisters,’ and it is said that these deities assisted Kolu in building the tank, by coming and working on the embankment at night when the labourers had left. Some whitish-yellow stones on Kolasur’s hill are said to be the baskets of the Seven Sisters in which they carried earth. “The Kohli,” Mr. Napier states,5 “sacrifices all to his sugarcane, his one ambition and his one extravagance being to build a large reservoir which will contain water for the irrigation of his sugarcane during the long, hot months.” Each rates the other according to the size of his tank and the strength of its embankment. Under the Gond kings a man who built a tank received a grant of the fields lying below it either free of revenue or on a very light assessment. Such grants were known as Tukm, and were probably a considerable incentive to tank-building. Unfortunately sugarcane, formerly a most profitable crop, has been undersold by the canal- and tank-irrigated product of northern India, and at present scarcely repays cultivation.

The Kohli villages are managed on a somewhat patriarchal system, and the dealings between proprietors and cultivators are regulated by their own custom without much regard to the rules imposed by Government. Mr. Napier says of them:6 “The Kohlis are very good landlords as a general rule; but in their dealings with their tenants and their labourers follow their own customs, while the provisions of the Tenancy Act often remain in abeyance. They admit no tenant right in land capable of being irrigated for sugarcane, and change the tenants as they please; and in many villages a large number of the labourers are practically serfs, being fed, clothed and married by their employers, for whom they and their children work all their lives without any fixed wages. These customs are acquiesced in by all parties, and, so far as I could learn, there was no discontent. They have a splendid caste discipline, and their quarrels are settled expeditiously by their panchayats or committees without reference to courts of law.”

In appearance and character the Kohlis cannot be said to show much trace of distinction. The men wear a short white bandi or coat, and a small head-cloth only three feet long. This is often scarcely more than a handkerchief which tightly covers the crown, and terminates in knots, inelegant and cheap. The women wear glass bangles only on the left hand and brass or silver ones on the right, no doubt because glass ornaments would interfere with their work and get broken. Their cloth is drawn over the left shoulder instead of the right, a custom which they share with Gonds, Kapewars and Buruds. In appearance the caste are generally dirty. They are ignorant themselves and do not care that their children should be educated. Their custom of polygamy leads to family quarrels and excessive subdivision of property; thus in one village, Ashti, the proprietary right is divided into 192 shares. On this account they are seldom well-to-do. Their countenances are of a somewhat inferior type and generally dark in colour. In character they are peaceful and amenable, and have the reputation of being very respectful to Government officials, who as a consequence look on them with favour. ‘Their heart is good,’ a tahsildar7 of the Bhandara District remarked. If a guest comes to a Kohli, the host himself offers to wash his feet, and if the guest be a Brahman, will insist on doing so. They eat flesh and fowls, but abstain from liquor. In social status they are on a level with the Malis and a little below the regular cultivating castes.