Barhai
List of Paragraphs
1. Strength and local distribution.
1. Strength and Local Distribution
Barhai, Sutār, Kharādi, Mistri.—The occupational caste of carpenters. The Barhais numbered nearly 110,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār in 1911, or about 1 in 150 persons. The caste is most numerous in Districts with large towns, and few carpenters are to be found in villages except in the richer and more advanced Districts. Hitherto such woodwork as the villagers wanted for agriculture has been made by the Lohār or blacksmith, while the country cots, the only wooden article of furniture in their houses, could be fashioned by their own hands or by the Gond woodcutter. In the Mandla District the Barhai caste counts only 300 persons, and about the same in Bālāghāt, in Drūg only 47 persons, and in the fourteen Chhattīsgarh Feudatory States, with a population of more than two millions, only some 800 persons. The name Barhai is said to be from the Sanskrit Vardhika and the root vardh, to cut. Sutār is a common name of the caste in the Marātha Districts, and is from Sūtra-kara, one who works by string, or a maker of string. The allusion may be to the Barhai’s use of string in planing or measuring timber, or it may possibly indicate a transfer of occupation, the Sutārs having first been mainly string-makers and afterwards abandoned this calling for that of the carpenter. The first wooden implements and articles of furniture may have been held together by string before nails came into use. Kharādi is literally a turner, one who turns woodwork on a lathe, from kharāt, a lathe. Mistri, a corruption of the English Mister, is an honorific title for master carpenters.
2. Internal Structure
The comparatively recent growth of the caste in these Provinces is shown by its subdivisions. The principal subcastes of the Hindustāni Districts are the Pardeshi or foreigners, immigrants from northern India, and the Pūrbia or eastern, coming from Oudh; other subcastes are the Sri Gaur Mālas or immigrants from Mālwa, the Berādi from Berār, and the Māhure from Hyderābād. We find also subcastes of Jāt and Teli Barhais, consisting of Jāts and Telis (oil-pressers) who have taken to carpentering. Two other caste-groups, the Chamār Barhais and Gondi Barhais, are returned, but these are not at present included in the Barhai caste, and consist merely of Chamārs and Gonds who work as carpenters but remain in their own castes. In the course of some generations, however, if the cohesive social force of the caste system continues unabated, these groups may probably find admission into the Barhai caste. Colonel Tod notes that the progeny of one Makūr, a prince of the Jādon Rājpūt house of Jaisalmer, became carpenters, and were known centuries after as Makūr Sutārs. They were apparently considered illegitimate, as he states: “Illegitimate children can never overcome this natural defect among the Rājpūts. Thus we find among all classes of artisans in India some of royal but spurious descent.”1 The internal structure of the caste seems therefore to indicate that it is largely of foreign origin and to a certain degree of recent formation in these Provinces.
3. Marriage Customs
The caste are also divided into exogamous septs named after villages. In some localities it is said that they have no septs, but only surnames, and that people of the same surname cannot intermarry. Well-to-do persons marry their daughters before puberty and others when they can afford the expense of the ceremony. Brāhman priests are employed at weddings, though on other occasions their services are occasionally dispensed with. The wedding ceremony is of the type prevalent in the locality. When the wedding procession reaches the bride’s village it halts near the temple of Māroti or Hanumān. Among the Panchāl Barhais the bridegroom does not wear a marriage crown but ties a bunch of flowers to his turban. The bridegroom’s party is entertained for five days. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. In most localities it is said that a widow is forbidden to marry her first husband’s younger as well as his elder brother. Among the Pardeshi Barhais of Betūl if a bachelor desires to marry a widow he must first go through the ceremony with a branch or twig of the gūlar tree.2
4. Religion
The caste worship Viswakarma, the celestial architect, and venerate their trade implements on the Dasahra festival. They consider the sight of a mongoose and of a light-grey pigeon or dove as lucky omens. They burn the dead and throw the ashes into a river or tank, employing a Mahā-Brāhman to receive the gifts for the dead.
5. Social Position
In social status the Barhais rank with the higher artisan castes. Brāhmans take water from them in some localities, perhaps more especially in towns. In Betūl for instance Hindustāni Brāhmans do not accept water from the rural Barhais. In Damoh where both the Barhai and Lohār are village menials, their status is said to be the same, and Brahmans do not take water from Lohārs. Mr. Nesfield says that the Barhai is a village servant and ranks with the Kurmi, with whom his interests are so closely allied. But there seems no special reason why the interests of the carpenter should be more closely allied with the cultivator than those of any other village menial, and it may be offered as a surmise that carpentering as a distinct trade is of comparatively late origin, and was adopted by Kurmis, to which fact the connection noticed by Mr. Nesfield might be attributed; hence the position of the Barhai among the castes from whom a Brāhman will take water. In some localities well-to-do members of the caste have begun to wear the sacred thread.
6. Occupation
In the northern Districts and the cotton tract the Barhai works as a village menial. He makes and mends the plough and harrow (bakhar) and other wooden implements of agriculture, and makes new ones when supplied with the wood. In Wardha he receives an annual contribution of 100 lbs. of grain from each cultivator. In Betūl he gets 67 lbs. of grain and other perquisites for each plough of four bullocks. For making carts and building or repairing houses he must be separately paid. At weddings the Barhai often supplies the sacred marriage-post and is given from four annas to a rupee. At the Diwāli festival he prepares a wooden peg about six inches long, and drives it into the cultivator’s house inside the threshold, and receives half a pound to a pound of grain.
In cities the carpenters are rapidly acquiring an increased degree of skill as the demand for a better class of houses and furniture becomes continually greater and more extensive. The carpenters have been taught to make English furniture by such institutions as the Friends’ Mission of Hoshangābād and other missionaries; and a Government technical school has now been opened at Nāgpur, in which boys from all over the Province are trained in the profession. Very little wood-carving with any pretensions to excellence has hitherto been done in the Central Provinces, but the Jain temples at Saugor and Khurai contain some fair woodwork. A good carpenter in towns can earn from 12 annas to Rs. 1–8 a day, and both his earnings and prospects have greatly improved within recent years. Sherring remarks of the Barhais: “As artisans they exhibit little or no inventive powers: but in imitating the workmanship of others they are perhaps unsurpassed in the whole world. They are equally clever in working from designs and models.”3
Notes
1 Rājasthān, ii. p. 210.
2 Ficus glomerata.
3 Hindu Castes, i. p. 316.