8. Character.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Russell, R. V. (Robert Vane)
The Gūjars wear the dress of northern India and their women usually have skirts (lahenga) and not sāris or body-cloths. Married women have a number of strings of black beads round the neck and widows must change these for red ones. As a rule neither men nor women are tattooed. The men sometimes have their hair long and wear beards and whiskers. The Gūjars are now considered the best cultivators of the Nimār District. They are fond of irrigation and sink unfaced wells to water their land and get a second crop off it. They are generally prosperous and make good landlords. Members of the caste have the custom of lending and borrowing among themselves and not from outsiders, and this no doubt conduces to mutual economy and solvency. Like keen cultivators elsewhere, such as the Panwārs and Kurmis, the Gūjar sets store by having a good house and good cattle. The return from a Mundle Gūjar’s wedding, Captain Forsyth wrote,13 is a sight to be seen. Every Gūjar from far and near has come with his whole family in his best bullock-cart gaily ornamented, and, whatever the road may be, nothing but a smash will prevent a breakneck race homewards at full gallop, cattle which have won in several such races acquiring a much coveted reputation throughout the District.
Source notes
1Early History of India, 3rd ed. pp. 409, 411.
2 Mr. Smith ascribes this discovery to Messrs. A. M. T. Jackson (Bombay Gazetteer, vol. i. Part I., 1896, p. 467); D. R. Bhandārkar, Gurjaras (J. Bo. R.A.S. vol. xx.); and Epigraphic Notes (ibidem, vol. xxi.); and Professor Kielhorn’s paper on the Gwālior Inscription of Mihira Bhoja in a German journal.
3Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarāt, Appendix B, The Gūjars.
4 The Khazars were known to the Chinese as Yetas, the beginning of Yeta-i-li-to, the name of their ruling family, and the nations of the west altered this to Hyatilah and Ephthalite. Campbell, ibidem.
5 See article on Panwār Rājpūt, para. 1.
6 Campbell, loc. cit. p. 495.
7Tribes and Castes, article Gūjar, para. 12. The description is mainly taken from Elliott’s History of India as told by its own Historians.
8 Description of the Kāngra Gūjars by Mr. Barnes. Quoted in Ibbetson’s Punjab Census Report (1881), para. 481.
9Census Report, para. 481.
10 Cf. Krishna’s epithet of Murlidhar or the flute-player, and the general association of the flute with herdsmen and shepherds in Greek and Roman mythology.
11Ibidem.
12Hoshangābād Settlement Report, para. 16.
13Nimār Settlement Report (1868).