Ramosi
This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly |
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 a book. During scanning some errors are bound to occur. Some letters get garbled. Footnotes get inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot errors might like to correct them, and shift footnotes gone astray to their rightful place.
Ramosi
A Criminal tribe of the Bombay notice. Presidency, of which about 150 persons were returned from the Central Provinces and Berar in 191 1. They belong to the western tract of the Satpuras adjoining Khandesh. The name is supposed to be a corruption of Ramvansi, meaning ' The descendants of Rama.' They say ^ that when Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, was driven from his kingdom by his step-mother Kaikeyi, he went to the forest land south 1 B. G. Poona, Part I., p. 409.
of the Nerbudda. His brother Bharat, who had been raised to the throne, could not bear to part with Ranna, so he followed him to the forest, began to do penance, and made friends with a rough but kindly forest tribe. After Rama's restoration Bharat took two foresters with him to Ajodhia (Oudh) and brought them to the notice of Rama, who appointed them village watchmen and allowed them to take his name.
If this is the correct derivation it may be compared with the name of Rawanvansi or Children of Rawan, the opponent of Rama, which is applied to the Gonds of the Central Provinces, The Ramosis appear to be a Hinduised caste derived from the Bhils or Kolis or a mixture of the two tribes. They were formerly a wellknown class of robbers and dacoits. The principal scenes of their depredations were the western Ghats, and an interesting description of their methods is given by Captain Mackintosh in his account of the tribe.^ Some extracts from this are here reproduced.
They armed themselves chiefly with swords, taking one, 2. Methods
two or three matchlocks, or more should they judge it
of robbery,
necessary. Several also carried their shields and a few had
merely sticks, which were in general shod wath small bars of
iron from eight to twelve inches in length, strongly secured by
means of rings and somewhat resembling»the ancient mace.
One of the party carried a small copper or earthen pot or a
cocoanut-shell with a supply of gJii or clarified butter in it,
to moisten their torches with before they commenced their
operations.
The Ramosis endeavoured as much as possible to avoid being seen by anybody either when they were proceeding to the object of their attack or returning afterwards to their houses. They therefore travelled during the night-time ; and before daylight in the morning they concealed themselves in a jungle or ravine near some water, and slept all day, proceeding in this way for a long distance till they reached the vicinity of the village to be attacked. When they were pursued and much pressed, at times they would throw themselves into a bush or under a prickly pear 1 A7t Account of the Origin and Tracts.
Also published in the Madras Present Condition of the Tribe of Journal of Literature and Science. ) Ramosis (Bombay, 1833 ; India Office
plant, coiling themselves up so carefully that the chances were their pursuers would pass them unnoticed. If they intended to attack a treasure party they would wait at some convenient spot on the road and sally out when it came abreast of them, first girding up their loins and twisting a cloth tightly round their faces, to prevent the features from being recognised. Before entering the village where their dacoity or diirrowa was to be perpetrated, torches were made from the turban of one of the party, which was torn into three, five or seven pieces, but never into more, the pieces being then soaked with butter. The same man always supplied the turban and received in exchange the best one taken in the robbery.
Those who were unarmed collected bags of stones, and these were thrown at any people who tried to interfere with them during the dacoity. They carried firearms, but avoided using them if possible, as their discharge might summon defenders from a distance.
They seldom killed or mutilated their victims, except in a fight, but occasionally travellers were killed after being robbed as a measure of precaution. They retreated with their spoils as rapidly as possible to the nearest forest or hill, and from there, after distributing the booty into bags to make it portable, they marched off in a different direction from that in which they had come. Before reaching their homes one of the party was deputed with an offering of one, two or five rupees to be presented as an offering to their god Khandoba or the goddess Bhawani in fulfilment of a vow. All the spoil was then deposited before their Naik or headman, who divided it into equal shares for members of the gang, keeping a double share for himself.
3. Ramosis In Order to protect themselves from the depredations of
'^"^P.'ljy^^ these gangs the villagers adopted a system of hiring a
watchnien. Ramosi as a surety to be responsible for their property, and
this man gradually became a Rakhwaldar or village watchman.
He received a grant of land rent-free and other
perquisites, and also a fee from all travellers and gangs of
traders who halted in the village in return for his protection
during the night. If a theft or house-breaking occurred in
a village, the Ramosi was held responsible to the owner for
the value of the property, unless a large gang had been engaged. If he failed to discover the thief he engaged to make the lost property good to the owner within fifteen days or a month unless its value was considerable.
If a gang had been engaged, the Ramosi, accompanied by the patel and other village officials and cultivators, proceeded to track them by their footprints. Obtaining a stick he cut it to the exact length of the footprint, or several such if a number of prints could be discovered, and followed the tracks, measuring the footprints, to the boundary of the village. The inhabitants of the adjoining village were then called and were responsible for carrying on the trail through their village.
The measures of footprints were handed over to them, and after satisfying themselves that the marks came from outside and extended into their land they took up the trail accompanied by the Ramosi. In this way the gang was tracked from village to village, and if it was run to earth the residents of the villages to which it belonged had to make good the loss. If the tracks were lost owing to the robbers having waded along a stream or got on to rocky ground or into a public road, then the residents of the village in whose borders the line failed were considered responsible for the stolen property. Usually, however, a compromise was made, and they paid half, while the other half was raised from the village in which the theft occurred.
If the Ramosi failed to track the thieves out of the village
he had to make good the value of the theft, but he was
usually assisted by the village officer. Often, too, the owner
had to be contented with half or a quarter of the amount
lost as compensation. In the early part of the century the
Ramosis of Poona became very troublesome and constantly
committed robberies in the houses of Europeans.
As a consequence a custom grew up of employing a Ramosi as chaukidar or watchman for guarding the bungalow at night on a salary of seven rupees a month, and soon became general. It was the business of the Ramosi watchman to prevent other Ramosis from robbing the house. Apparently this was the common motive for the custom, prevalent up to recent years, of paying a man solely for the purpose of watching the house at night, and it originated, as in customs.
Poona, as a form of insurance and an application of the proverb of setting a thief to catch a thief The selection of village watchmen from among the low criminal castes appears to have been made on the same principle. 4. Social The principal deity of the Ramosis is Khandoba, the Maratha god of war.^ He is the deified sword, the name being khanda-aba or sword-father. An oath taken on the Bhandar or little bag of turmeric dedicated to Khandoba is held by them most sacred and no Ramosi will break this oath. Every Ramosi has a family god known as Devak, and persons having the same Devak cannot intermarry.
The Devak is usually a tree or a bunch of the leaves of several trees. No one may eat the fruit of or otherwise use the tree which is his Devak. At their weddings the branches of several trees are consecrated as Devaks or guardians of the wedding.
A Gurao cuts the leafy branches of the mango, nmar^ jdrmin ^ and of the rui ^ and shami ^ shrubs and a few stalks of grass and sets them in Hanuman's temple. From here the bridegroom's parents, after worshipping Hanuman with a betel-leaf and five areca-nuts, take them home and fasten them to the front post of the marriage-shed. When the bridegroom is taken before the family gods of the bride, he steals one of them in token of his profession, but afterwards restores it in return for a payment of mone}'.
In social position the Ramosis rank a little above the Mahars and Mangs, not being impure. They speak Marathi but have also a separate thieves' jargon of their own, of which a vocabulary is given in the account of Captain Mackintosh. When a Ramosi child is seven or eight years old he must steal something. If he is caught and goes to prison the people are delighted, fall at his feet when he comes out and try to obtain him as a husband for their daughters.^ It is doubtful whether these practices obtain in the Central Provinces, and as the Ramosis are not usually reckoned here among the notorious criminal tribes they may probabl}^ have taken to more honest pursuits.
1 This paragraph is mainly compiled ^ Engc^iia jambolana. from the Ndsik and Poona volumes of * Calotropis gigantca. the Bombay Gazetteer. 6 Bauhinia raceniosa. 2 Ficus glomerata, " Poona Gazetteer, part i. p. 425. II
