Katia
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From The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India
By R. V. Russell
Of The Indian Civil Service
Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces
Assisted By Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner
Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.
NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh.
NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from the original book. Therefore, footnotes have got inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot these footnotes gone astray might like to shift them to their correct place.
Katia
Katwa, Katua
An occupational caste of cotton - spinners and village watchmen belonging to the Satpura Districts and the Nerbudda valley. In 1911 they numbered 41,000 persons and were returned mainly from the Hoshangabad, Seoni and Chhindwara Districts. The caste is almost confined to the Central Provinces. The name is derived from the Hindi kdtna, to spin thread, and the Katias are an occupational group probably recruited from the Mahars and Koris. They have a tradition, Mr. Crooke states,1 that they were originally Bais Rajputs, whose 1 Tribes mid Castes of the N.-W. P., art. Katwa. notice.
ancestors, having been imprisoned for resistance to authority, were released on the promise that they would follow a woman's occupation of spinning thread. In the Central Provinces they are sometimes called Renhta Rajputs or Knights of the Spinning Wheel. The tradition of Rajput descent need not of course be taken seriously. The drudgery of spinning thread was naturally imposed on any widow in the household, and hence the saying, ' It is always moving, like a widow's spinning-wheel.' 1 The Katias have several subcastes, with names generally 2. Sub- derived from places in the Central Provinces, as Pathari castes and 1 ' exogamous from a village in the Chhindwara District, Mandilwar from groups. Mandla, Gadhewal from Garha, near Jubbulpore, and so on.
The Dulbuha group consist of those who were formerly palanquin-bearers (from dolt, a litter). They have also more than fifty exogamous septs, with names of the usual low- caste type, derived from places, animals or plants, or natural objects. Some of the septs are subdivided. Thus the Nagotia sept, named after the cobra, is split up into the Nagotia, Dirat 2 Nag, Bharowar 3 Nag, Kosam Karia and Hazari 4 Nag groups.
It is said that the different groups do not intermarry ; but it is probable that they do, as other- wise there seems to be no object in the subdivision. The Kosam Karias worship a cobra at their weddings, but not the others. The Singhotia sept, from sing/i, a horn, is divided into the Bakaria (goat) and Ghagar-bharia (one who fills an earthen vessel) subsepts. The Bakarias offer goats to their gods ; and the Ghagar-bharias on the Akti 5 festival, just before the breaking of the rains, fill an earthen vessel and worship it, and consider it sacred for that day. Next day it is brought into ordinary use.
The Dongaria sept, from dongar, a hill, revere the chheola tree. 6 They choose any tree of this species outside the village, and say that it is placed on a hill, and go and worship it once a year. In this case it would appear that a hill was first venerated as an animate being and the ancestor of the sept. When hills were no longer so regarded, a ckheola tree growing on a hill 1 Temple and Fallon's Hindustani < A thousand. Proverbs. 2 Perhaps a leather strap or belt. The third Bais*kh (June)- 3 A revolution or circuit. ,; Butea frondosa. VOL. Ill 2 C customs.
was substituted ; and now the tree only is revered, prob- ably a good deal for form's sake, and so far as the hill is concerned, the mere pretence that it is growing on a hill is sufficient. 3 . Mar- A main must not take a wife from his own sept nor from that of his mother or grandmother. Girls are commonly married between eight and twelve years of age ; and a cus- tomary payment of Rs. 9 is made to the father of the bride, double this amount being given by a widower. An un- married girl seduced by a man of the caste is united to him by the ceremony used for a widow, and a fine is imposed on her parents ; if she goes wrong with an outsider she is ex- pelled from the community. In the marriage ceremony the customary ritual of the northern Districts is followed, 1 and the binding portion of it consists in the bride and bridegroom walking seven times around the blianwar or sacred pole. While she does this it is essential that the bride should wear a string of black beads round her neck and brass anklets on her feet.
After the ceremony the bride's mother and other women dance before the company. Whether the bride be a child or young woman she always returns home after a stay of a few days at her husband's house, and at her subsequent final departure the Gauna or going-away ceremony is per- formed. If the bridegroom dies after the wedding and before the Gauna, his younger brother or cousin or anybody else may come and take away the bride after performing this ceremony, and she will be considered as fully married to him. She is known as a Gonhyai wife, as distinguished from a Byahta or one married in the ordinary manner, and a Karta or widow married a second time.
But the children of all three inherit equally. A widow may marry again, and take any one she pleases for her second husband. Widow- marriages must not be celebrated in the rainy months of Shrawan, Bhadon and Kunwar. No music is allowed at them, and the husband must present a fee of a rupee and a cocoanut to the malguzar (proprietor) of the village and four annas to the kotwar or watchman. A bachelor who is to marry a widow first goes through a formal ceremony with a cotton plant. Divorce is permitted for mutual disagreement. 1 A description of the ceremony is given in the article on Kurmi.
The couple stand before the caste committee and each takes a stick, breaks it in two halves, and throws them apart, say- ing, " I have no further connection with my husband (or wife), and I break my marriage with him (or her) as I break this stick." The dead may be either buried or burnt, as convenient, 4. Funeral and mourning is always observed for three days. Before the mes- corpse is removed a new earthen pot filled with rice is placed on the bier.
The chief mourner raises it, and addressing the deceased informs him that after a certain period he will be united to the sainted dead, and until that day his spirit should abide happily in the pot and not trouble his family. The mouth of the pot is then covered, and after the funeral the mourners take it home with them. When the day appointed for the final ceremony has come, a miniature platform is made from sticks tied together, and garlands and offerings of cakes are hung on to it. A small heap of rice is made on the plat- form, and just above it a clove is suspended from a thread. Songs are sung, and the principal relative opens the pot in which the spirit of the deceased has been enclosed. The spirit is called upon to join the sacred company of the dead, and the party continue to sing and to adjure it with all their force. The thread from which the clove is suspended begins to swing backwards and forwards over the rice ; and a pig and two or three chickens are crushed to death as offerings to the soul of the deceased. Finally the clove touches the rice, and it is believed that the spirit of the dead man has departed to join the sainted dead. The Katias consider that after this he requires nothing more from the living, and so they do not make the annual offerings to the souls of the departed.
The caste sometimes employ a Brahman for the marriage 5 Social ceremony ; but generally his services are limited to fixing an ru * auspicious date, and the functions of a priest are undertaken by members of the family. They invite a Brahman to give a name to a boy, and call him by this name. They think that if they changed the name they would not be able to get a wife for the child. They will eat any kind of flesh, includ- ing pork and fowls, but they are not considered to be impure.
They are generally illiterate, and dirty in appearance. Un- married girls wear glass bangles on both hands, but married
women wear metal bracelets on the right hand and glass on the left. Girls are twice tattooed : first in childhood, and a second time after marriage. The proper avocations of the Katias were the spinning of cotton thread and the weaving of the finer kinds of cloth ; but most of them have had to abandon their ancestral calling from want of custom, and they are now either village watchmen or cultivators and labourers. A few of them own villages. The Katias think themselves rather knowing ; but this opinion is not shared by their neighbours, who say ironically of them, " A Katia is eight times as wise as an ordinary man, and a Kayasth thirteen times. Any one who pretends to be wiser than these must be an idiot."
Katia
(From People of India/ National Series Volume VIII. Readers who wish to share additional information/ photographs may please send them as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.)
Synonyms: Kaibarta, Keuta, Kotia [Orissa]
- Subcastes: Dulbuha, Gadhewal, Mandilwar, Mandla, P
athari [Russell & Hiralal] Surnames: Battai, Behera, Dalai, Jena, Khotua, Palai, Pradhan, Sutar [Orissa] Exogamous units/clans: Begha (tiger), Ghaicha, Naga (snake) [Orissa]
- Septs: Bakaria, Bharowar, Dirat, Ghgagar-bharia, K
osam Karia, Nag, Nagotia, Singhotia [Russell & Hira lal]
