Kolta,1 Kolita, Kulta.—An agricultural caste of the Sambalpur District and the adjoining Uriya States. In 1901 the Central Provinces contained 127,000 Koltas out of 132,000 in India, but since the transfer of Sambalpur the headquarters of the caste belong to Bihar and Orissa, and only 36,000 remain in the Central Provinces. In Assam more than two lakhs of persons were enumerated under the caste name of Kalita in 1901, but in spite of the resemblance of the name the Kalitas apparently have no connection with the Uriya country, while the Koltas know nothing of a section of their caste in Assam. The Koltas of Sambalpur say that they immigrated from Baud State, which they regard as their ancestral home, and a member of their caste formerly held the position of Diwan of the State. According to one of their legends their first ancestors were born from the leavings of food of the legendary Raja Janak of Mithila or Tirhut, whose daughter Sita married King Rama of Ajodhya, the hero of the Ramayana. Some Koltas went with Sita to Ajodhya and were employed as water-bearers in the royal household. When Rama was banished they accompanied him in his wanderings, and were permitted to settle in the Uriya country at the request of the Raghunathia Brahmans, who wanted cultivators to till the soil. Another legend is that once upon a time, when Rama was wandering in the forests of Sambalpur, he met three brothers and asked them to draw water for him. The first brought water in a clean brass pot, and was called Sudh (good-mannered). The second made a cup of leaves and drew water from a well with a rope; he was called Dumal, from dori-mal, a coil of rope. The third brought water only in a hollow gourd, and he was named Kolta, from ku-rita, bad-mannered. This story serves to show that the Koltas, Sudhs and Dumals acknowledge some connection, and in the Sambalpur District they will take food together at festivals. But this degree of intimacy may simply have arisen from their common calling of agriculture, and may be noticed among the cultivating castes elsewhere, as the Kirars, Gujars and Raghuvansis in Hoshangabad. The most probable theory of the origin of the Koltas is that they are an offshoot of the great Chasa caste, the principal cultivating caste of the Uriya country, corresponding to the Kurmis and Kunbis in Hindustan and the Deccan. Several of their family names are identical with those of the Chasas, and there is actually a subcaste of Kolita Chasas. Mr. Hira Lal conjectures that the Koltas may be those Chasas who took to growing kultha (Dolichos uniflorus), a favourite pulse in Sambalpur; just as the Santora Kurmis are so named from their growing san-hemp, and the Alia Banias and Kunbis from the al or Indian madder. This hypothesis derives some support from the fact that the Koltas have no subcastes, and the formation of the caste may therefore be supposed to have occurred at a comparatively recent period.

The Koltas have both family names or gotras and exogamous sections or bargas. The gotras are generally named after animals or other objects, as Dip (lamp), Bachhas (calf), Hasti (elephant), Bharadwaj (blue-jay), and so on. Members of the Bachhas gotra must not yoke a young bullock to the plough for the first time, but must get this done by somebody else. The names of the bargas are generally derived from villages or from offices or titles. In one or two cases they show the admission of members of other castes; thus the Rawat barga are the descendants of a Rawat (herdsman) who was in the service of the Raja of Sambalpur. The Raja had brought him up from infancy, and, wishing to make him a Kolta, married him to a Kolta girl, despite the protests of the caste. The ancestor of the Hinmiya Bhoi barga had a mistress of the Khond tribe, who left him some property, and is still worshipped in the family. The number of gotras is smaller than that of the bargas, and some gotras, as the Nag or cobra, the tortoise and the pipal tree, are common to many bargas. Marriage is forbidden between members of the same barga, and between first cousins on the father’s side. To have the same gotra is no bar to marriage.

Girls should be wedded before maturity, as among most of the Uriya castes, and if no suitable husband is forthcoming a nominal marriage is sometimes arranged with an old man, and the girl is afterwards disposed of as a widow. The boy’s father makes the proposal for the marriage, and if this is accepted the following formal ceremony takes place. He goes to the girl’s village, accompanied by some friends, and taking a quantity of gur (raw sugar), and staying at some other house, sends a messenger known as Jalangia to the girl’s father, intimating that he has a request to make. The girl’s father pretends not to know what it is, and replies that if he has anything to say the elders of the village should be called to hear it. These assemble, and the girl’s father informs them that a stranger from another village has come to ask something of him, and as he is ignorant of its purport, he has asked them to do him the favour of being present. The boy’s father then opens a parable, saying that he was carried down a river in flood, and saved himself by grasping a tree on the bank. The girl’s father replies that the roots of a riverside tree are weak, and he fears that the tree itself would go down in the flood. The boy’s father replies that in that case he would be content to perish with the tree. Thereupon the caste priest places a nut and some sacred rice cooked at Jagannath’s temple in the hands of the parties, who stand together facing the company, and the girl’s father says he has no objection to giving his daughter in marriage, provided that she may not be abandoned if she should subsequently become disfigured. The nut is broken and distributed to all present in ratification of the agreement. After this, other visits and a formal interchange of presents take place prior to the marriage proper. This is performed with the customary ceremonial of the Uriya castes. The marriage altar is made of earth brought from outside the village by seven married women. Branches of the mahua tree are placed on the altar, and after the conclusion of the ceremony are thrown into a tank. The women also take a jar of water to a tank and, emptying it, fill the jar with the tank water. They go round to seven houses, and at each empty and refill the jar with water from the house. The water finally brought back is used for bathing the bride and bridegroom, and is believed to protect them from all supernatural dangers. An image of the family totem made from powdered rice is anointed with oil and turmeric, and worshipped daily while the marriage is in progress. If the boy or girl is the eldest child, the parents go through a mock marriage ceremony which the child is not allowed to see. When the couple are brought into the marriage-shed, they throw seven handfuls of rice mixed with mung2 and salt on each other. The priest ties the hands of the couple with thread spun by virgins, and the relatives then pour water over the knot. The bride’s brother comes up and unties the knot, and gives the bridegroom a blow on the back. This is meant to show his anger at being deprived of his sister. He is given a piece of cloth and goes away. Presents are made to the pair, and the women throw rice on them. They are then taken inside the house and set to gamble with cowries. If the bridegroom wins he promises an ornament to the bride. If she wins she promises to serve him. The boy then asks her to sit with him on a bench, and she at first refuses, and agrees when he promises her other presents. Next day the bride’s mother singes the cheeks of the bridegroom with betel-leaves heated over a lamp, and throws cowdung and rice over the couple to protect them from evil. The party takes its departure for the bridegroom’s village, and on arrival there his sisters hold a cloth over the door of the house and will not let the couple in till they are given a present. The bridegroom then shoots an arrow at an image of a monkey or a deer, made of powdered rice, which is brought back, cooked and eaten. The bride goes home in a day or two, and the Bandapana ceremony is performed when she finally departs to live with her husband on arrival at maturity. The Koltas allow widow-marriage, but the husband has to pay a sum of about Rs. 100 to the caste-people, the bulk of which is expended in feasting. Divorce may be effected in the presence of the caste committee.

The caste worship the goddess Ramchandi, whose principal shrine is at Sarsara in Baud State. In order to establish a local Ramchandi, a handful of earth must be brought from her shrine at Sarsara and made into a representation of the goddess. Some consider that Ramchandi is the personification of Mother Earth, and the Koltas will not swear by the earth. They worship the plough in the month of Shrawan, washing it with water and milk, and applying sandal-paste with offerings of flowers and food. The Puajiuntia festival is observed in Kunwar for the well-being of a son. On this occasion barren women try to ascertain whether they will get a son. A hole is made in the ground and filled with water, and a living fish is placed in it. The woman sits by the hole holding her cloth spread out, and if the fish in struggling jumps into her cloth, it is held to prognosticate the birth of a son. The caste worship their family gods and totems on the 10th day of Asarh, Bhadon, Kartik and Magh, which are called the pure months. They employ Brahmans for religious ceremonies. Every man has a guru who is a Bairagi, and he must be initiated by his guru before he is allowed to marry. The caste both burn and bury the dead. They eat flesh and fish, but generally abstain from liquor and the flesh of unclean animals, though in some places they are known to eat rats and crocodiles, and also the leavings of Brahmans. Brahmans will take water from Koltas, and their social standing is equal to that of the good agricultural castes.

The Koltas are skilful cultivators and have the usual characteristics belonging to the cultivating castes, of frugality, industry, hunger for land, and readiness to resort to any degree of litigation rather than relinquish a supposed right to it. They strongly appreciate the advantages of irrigation and show considerable public spirit in constructing tanks which will benefit the lands of their tenants as well as their own. Nevertheless they are not popular, probably because they are generally more prosperous than their neighbours. The rising of the Khonds of Kalahandi in 1882 was caused by their discontent at being ousted from their lands by the Koltas. The Raja of Kalahandi had imported a number of Kolta cultivators, and these speedily got the Khond headmen and ryots into their debt, and possessed themselves of all the best land in the Khond villages. In May 1882 the Khonds rose and slaughtered more than 80 Koltas, while 300 more were besieged in the village of Norla, the Khonds appearing with portions of the scalp and hair of the murdered victims hanging to their bows. On the arrival of a body of police which had been summoned from Vizagapatam, they dispersed, and the outbreak was soon afterwards suppressed, seven of the ringleaders being arrested, tried and hanged by the Political Officer. A settlement was made of the grievances of the Khonds and tranquillity was restored.