Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s2.14

c48.s2.14

§ 36. In the Dekkan and adjoining tracts, the one great cultivating caste is the Kunbī, which has been already treated of in connection with the Mārāṭhā. Like every caste spread over a wide area it is much subdivided, but its position and general constitution are fairly uniform. The corresponding caste in Gujarāt, which has been included under the general title, calls itself Kaṇbī, and is distinct from the Dekkanī in origin, and custom as in language. Along with the tradition of early immigration from the north, it has many points of resemblance with the Gūjar of the Panjāb. The Kaṇbī is almost entirely agricultural, and is in occupation of the most fertile tracts of Gujarāt, with the reputation of making the most of them. The only alternative occupation generally recognised is silk-weaving, to which one of the subdivisions is devoted. A branch of the Kaṇbī is settled in the north Dekkan, an ancient domain of the Ahīr, or cattle-breeders. Here the caste is known by its old name of Gūjar, but its subdivisions are those of the modern caste of the coast. The Khaḍvā Kaṇbī, one of the main subdivisions, has the custom locally peculiar to itself and the Bharvāḍ shepherd, of celebrating its marriages only once every ten or eleven years, according to the vaticinations of their chief sacerdotal advisers. Naturally, so rare an opportunity has to be seized irrespective of the ages of the children, so that not only are infants in arms duly betrothed, but women in the family way join in perambulating the nuptial altar, on the understanding that their future offspring, if sex permit, are thereby made man and wife. As to the relative number of the Marāṭhi and the Gujarāti sections of this caste, there are probably about 2,700,000 of the former, and 1,350,000 of the latter. The Kōlī in its various subdivisions is probably an early dark race extruded from the plains by the Kaṇbī, so far as it is found in the west. Under the same name, it is found from the Panjāb Himālaya to the Sahyādri Ghāṭs, not to mention the Kōl of the Central Belt. In the first named tract Kōlī is a general term for the menial classes, amongst whom most of the artisans are included. In Gujarāt there is a coast Kōlī, generally a boatman or fisher, and a large landed class, chiefly in the north of the province, called either Talabdā, the Locals, or Dhāralā, the arm-bearers. Some of its clans intermarry with the lower Rājputs, whose rules of exogamy they have adopted. In or near the hill country the Kōlī approximates to the Bhīl, though perhaps more settled in habit. On the Sahyādri, however, their reputation is lower, and the Malhārī branch are apparently the descendants of a wild tribe of the south western Belt, driven westwards by the advancing Muslim or by colonists from Teliṅgāna.