Nagfasia

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This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in 1916 its contents related only to Central India and did not claim to be true of all of India. It has been archived for its historical value as well as for the insights it gives into British colonial writing about the various communities of India. Indpaedia neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article. Readers who wish to add fresh information can create a Part II of this article. The general rule is that if we have nothing nice to say about communities other than our own it is best to say nothing at all. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly on their online archival encyclopædia only after its formal launch. See examples and a tutorial.

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.

Nagfasia

Naksia

A primitive tribe found principally in the Chota Nagpur States. They now number 16,000 persons in the Central Provinces, being returned almost entirely from Jashpur and Sarguja. The census returns are, however, liable to be inaccurate as the Nagasias frequently call themselves Kisan, a term which is also applied to the ' The clever writer referred to in the preceding line. ^ Breast-cloth. VOL. IV S

Oraons. The Nagasias say that they are the true Kisans whereas the Oraons are only so by occupation. The Oraons, on the other hand, call the Nagasias Kisada.

The tribe derive their name from the Nag or cobra, and they say that somebody left an infant in the forest of Setambu and a cobra came and spread its hood over the child to protect him from the rays of the sun. Some Mundas happened to pass by and on seeing this curious sight they thought the child must be destined to greatness, so they took him home and made him their king, calling him Nagasia, and from him the tribe are descended.

The episode of the snake is, of course, a stock legend related by many tribes, but the story appears to indicate that the Nagasias are an offshoot of the Mundas ; and this hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that Nagbasia is often used as an alternative name for the Mundas by their Hindu neighbours. The term Nagbasia is supposed to mean the original settlers {basia) in Nag (Chota Nagpur). The tribe are divided into the Telha, Dhuria and Senduria groups.

The Telhas are so called because at the marriage ceremony they mark the forehead of the bride with tel (oil), while the Dhurias instead of oil use dust {dhur) taken from the sole of the bridegroom's foot, and the Sendurias like most Hindu castes employ vermilion {sendur) for this purpose. The Telhas and Dhurias marry with each other,- but not with the Sendurias, who consider themselves to be superior to the others and use the term Nagbansia or ' Descendants of the Snake ' as their tribal name. The Telha and Dhuria women do not wear glass bangles on their arms but only bracelets of brass, while the Sendurias wear glass bangles and also armlets above the elbow.

Telha women do not wear nose-rings or tattoo their bodies, while the Sendurias do both. The Telhas say that the tattooing needle and vermilion, which they formerly employed in their marriages, were stolen from them by Wagdeo or the tiger god. So they hit upon sesamum oil as a substitute, which must be pressed for ceremonial purposes in a bamboo basket by unmarried boys using a plough-yoke.

This is probably, Mr. Hira Lai remarks, merely the primitive method of extracting oil, prior to the invention of the Teli's ghdni or oil-press ; and the practice is an instance of the common

rule that articles employed in ceremonial and religious rites should be prepared by the ancient and primitive methods which for ordinary purposes have been superseded by more recent labour-saving inventions.